[hobarrera]

Not only can this be circumvented with extreme ease[1], but it also:

(a) Make the website quite heavier. Especially for mobile devices, old computers, etc. (b) Stops breaking with noscript. (c) Search engines won't find your watermarked photos. In order to get credit for your stuff, people need to find it to re-use it first.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9545044

[scaturr]

I am seeing the same arguments made :) - Watermarking an on-page element does allow the original image to be access quite easily.

However, I will reiterate it is pretty useful to watermark from a user upload. You can watermark an image from the user's local machine - upload it, then display it. All from the client. I don't believe there is any easy in circumventing this method - if there is I would love to see it :)