{"id":13797,"date":"2025-07-20T22:24:44","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T20:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monodes.com\/predaelli\/?p=13797"},"modified":"2025-07-20T22:24:47","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T20:24:47","slug":"13797","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monodes.com\/predaelli\/2025\/07\/20\/13797\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I visited Terence blog<\/a> to read about some Easy ways to add watermarks to images and videos in Linux<\/a> but I found a very nice and clean to take inspiration from!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Mostly notes to myself \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a quick way to add watermarks to photos and videos. All Linux command line based – so perfect if you’ve got a lot of images you want to manipulate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a delightful photo I’ve taken of a bee covered in pollen. I want to add a little copyright notice to it in order to discourage people using it without permission.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Bee<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

This command uses imagemagick<\/a>‘s “annotate<\/a>” option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

convert bee.jpg -gravity SouthEast -pointsize 16 -font TinyUnicode-Medium -fill "#fffdc3" -annotate +10+10 "(C) @edent" bee1.jpg<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It produces this:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Bee<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

As you can see, a small watermark in the bottom right – specified using -gravity SouthEast<\/code>. I’ve chosen a yellow colour for the font – in homage to the EURion anti-counterfeiting symbols<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The -annotate<\/code> command contains the distance in pixels from the edges<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For small text, I favour a Pixel Font like TinyUnicode<\/a> – but feel free to choose one which suits your needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this example, I position the message in the top left, with a larger font size, in pale blue, closer to the horizontal edge and further from the vertical edge.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Bee<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

convert bee.jpg -gravity NorthWest -pointsize 32 -font Helvetica -fill "#cee3f8" -annotate +1+50 "(C) @edent" bee2.jpg<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Adding a watermark to a video is more complex. This will require either ffmpeg – which isn’t always installed by default on Linux – or avconv (I don’t pretend to understand why ffmpeg and avconv split<\/a> – but there we are).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am going to overlay<\/a> a transparent image on top of the video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve created this watermark image with a transparent background.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"A<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

To overlay it, I use:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i watermark.png -filter_complex "overlay=1500:1000" output.mp4<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

or for avconv’s overlay<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

avconv -i input.mp4 -i watermark.png -filter_complex 'overlay=x=main_w-overlay_w-10:y=main_h-overlay_h-10' output.mp4<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video Player

00:00<\/p>\n\n\n\n

00:03<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ffmpeg’s overlay=<\/code> option allows me to specify where the top left<\/em> of the image will appear on the video. So adjust those number based on the resolution of your watermark and of your video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

avconv has a more complex syntax. It’s possible to specify the absolute<\/em> position using overlay=x=1500:y=1000<\/code> or to use relative<\/em> positions with overlay=x=main_w-overlay_w-10:y=main_h-overlay_h-10<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, for a one-liner:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "drawtext=text='@edent':x=10:y=H-th-10:fontfile=\/home\/edent\/.local\/share\/fonts\/OCRAEXT.TTF:fontsize=15:fontcolor=#cee3f8" -vcodec h264 -strict -2 output.mp4\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
So, there you have it – hopefully simple ways to watermark your media files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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