Underlays, watermarking, and special effects

This page covers image underlays, watermarking, and special layer applications for videos. For the layer syntax itself, see Layer syntax. For applying transformations to layers, see Transforming layers. For text layer options, see Text layer options.

Image underlays

Add an underlay image under a partially transparent base video with the underlay parameter (u in URLs) and the public ID of a previously uploaded image (e.g., u_background for an image with the public ID of background), with the following general syntax.

You can determine the dimension of the underlay using width and height, and adjust the location of the base video over the underlay using the gravity parameter and the x and y parameters. The underlay can also be further transformed like any other image uploaded to Cloudinary, and the underlay parameter supports the same features as for overlays as described above.

For example, add an underlay of an image called site_bg to the base video. The underlay and base video are both resized to the same width and height, and the brightness is increased to 100 using the brightness effect (c_fill,h_200,w_200/u_site_bg/c_scale,h_200,w_200/e_brightness:100/fl_layer_apply):

See full syntax: u_<image id> in the Transformation Reference.

Remote image underlays

Similar to overlaying a remote image, you can underlay a remote image using u_fetch:<base64 encoded URL>.

For example, add the background image, https://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/upload/site_bg (base64 encoded: aHR0cHM6Ly9yZXMuY2xvdWRpbmFyeS5jb20vZGVtby9pbWFnZS91cGxvYWQvc2l0ZV9iZw==), as an underlay, resized to match the size of the base video (u_fetch:aHR0cHM6Ly9yZXMuY2xvdWRpbmFyeS5jb20vZGVtby9pbWFnZS91cGxvYWQvc2l0ZV9iZw==/c_fill,fl_layer_apply,fl_relative,h_1.0,w_1.0):

See full syntax: u_fetch in the Transformation Reference.

Watermarking

You can use a standard image layer for the purpose of applying a watermark to any delivered video. Opacity and/or brightness transformations are often applied to image layers when they are used as a watermark.

You can also use the smart anti-removal effect with your layer transformation in order to achieve your watermark requirements.

Smart anti-removal

You can use the anti-removal effect (e_anti_removal in URLs) to slightly modify image overlays in a random manner, thus making them much harder to remove (e.g., adding your logo as a watermark to assets). In most cases, the default level of modification is designed to be visually hard to notice, but still difficult to remove cleanly. If needed, you can optionally control the level of distortion that this transformation applies by adding a colon followed by an integer (the higher the number, the more the image is distorted). The anti_removal effect is added in the same component as the layer_apply flag.

For example, adding the anti-removal effect (with a high level of 90 for demonstration purposes) to an overlay of the image called cloudinary_icon_blue added to the north-east corner of the base asset, with the overlay's opacity set to 50% and scaled to a width of 150 pixels (c_scale,w_500/l_cloudinary_icon_blue/c_scale,w_150/o_50/e_anti_removal:90,fl_layer_apply,g_north_east):

See full syntax: e_anti_removal in the Transformation Reference.

Special layer applications

In addition to the primary use of layers for placing other assets or text on the base video, some transformation features make use of the layer option to specify a public ID that will be applied to the base video in order to achieve a desired effect. The following features make use of the layer transformation parameter in a special way: