Watermarking images with OpenCV and NumPy

Here's a simple Python example of adding a watermark to an image using NumPy and OpenCV. I created a black/white version of the OpenCV logo for this example but feel free to use any image you like. In this case I wanted to have a white watermark image, white text, and the rest of the image unchanged. If you have watermark images in color or grayscale the same process should work. Here's the code using the OpenCV license plate sample image:

import numpy as np
import cv2

# read images
original = cv2.imread('data/licenseplate_motion.jpg')
mark = cv2.imread('logo.png') 

m,n = original.shape[:2]

# create overlay image with mark at the upper left corner, use uint16 to hold sum
overlay = np.zeros_like(original, "uint16")
overlay[:mark.shape[0],:mark.shape[1]] = mark

# add the images and clip (to avoid uint8 wrapping)
watermarked = np.array(np.clip(original+overlay, 0, 255), "uint8")

# add some text 5 pixels in from the bottom left
cv2.putText(watermarked, "Watermarking with OpenCV", (5,m-5), cv2.FONT_HERSHEY_PLAIN, fontScale=1.0, color=(255,255,255), thickness=1)

cv2.imshow("original", original)
cv2.imshow("watermarked", watermarked)
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()

Note that I created an array of type "uint16" to hold the sum of the two images before clipping with NumPy's clip function. The text is added with OpenCV's putText function which will need position, font (out of the available OpenCV fonts) and text scale and a color tuple (here white). The result looks like this: