Try PHP extensions for ImageMagick It's a standard, tried and true image manipulation library.
From the homepage:
Use ImageMagick to translate, flip,
mirror, rotate, scale, shear and
transform images, adjust image colors,
apply various special effects, or draw
text, lines, polygons, ellipses and
Bézier curves.
If you consider using the MagickWand PHP extension:
The MagicWand docs start off with a nice PHP code sample shown here:
<?php
$magick_wand=NewMagickWand();
MagickReadImage($magick_wand,'rose.jpg');
$drawing_wand=NewDrawingWand();
DrawSetFont($drawing_wand,"/usr/share/fonts/bitstream-vera/Vera.ttf");
DrawSetFontSize($drawing_wand,20);
DrawSetGravity($drawing_wand,MW_CenterGravity);
$pixel_wand=NewPixelWand();
PixelSetColor($pixel_wand,"white");
DrawSetFillColor($drawing_wand,$pixel_wand);
if (MagickAnnotateImage($magick_wand,$drawing_wand,0,0,0,"Rose") != 0)
{
MagickEchoImageBlob( $magick_wand );
}
else
{
echo MagickGetExceptionString($magick_wand);
}
?>
Similarily, documentation for things you seek: