Watermarks (image_lib) for non-latin or special characters

[eluser]popovich[/eluser]
OK, if the cyrillics seems to be a hard nut to crack, what about special characters?
Here are two functions I have found, which are meant to convert the characters. Nothing works, though.
Oh, all my php files are saved in utf-8 encoding, the db fields collation (as well as the table itself) is utf8_unicode_ci.

Please?

Function one.

Code:

#
    # http://bugs.typo3.org/view.php?id=5078
    #
    function ricEncode($content) {
      $convmap = array(0x80, 0xff, 0, 0xff);
      return mb_encode_numericentity($content,$convmap, "utf-8");
    }

Function two:

Code:

function foxy_utf8_to_nce(
      $utf = EMPTY_STRING
    ) {
      if($utf == EMPTY_STRING) return($utf);
    
      $max_count = 5; // flag-bits in $max_mark ( 1111 1000 == 5 times 1)
      $max_mark = 248; // marker for a (theoretical ;-)) 5-byte-char and mask for a 4-byte-char;
    
      $html = EMPTY_STRING;
      for($str_pos = 0; $str_pos < strlen($utf); $str_pos++) {
        $old_chr = $utf{$str_pos};
        $old_val = ord( $utf{$str_pos} );
        $new_val = 0;
    
        $utf8_marker = 0;
    
        // skip non-utf-8-chars
        if( $old_val > 127 ) {
          $mark = $max_mark;
          for($byte_ctr = $max_count; $byte_ctr > 2; $byte_ctr--) {
            // actual byte is utf-8-marker?
            if( ( $old_val & $mark  ) == ( ($mark << 1) & 255 ) ) {
              $utf8_marker = $byte_ctr - 1;
              break;
            }
            $mark = ($mark << 1) & 255;
          }
        }
    
        // marker found: collect following bytes
        if($utf8_marker > 1 and isset( $utf{$str_pos + 1} ) ) {
          $str_off = 0;
          $new_val = $old_val & (127 >> $utf8_marker);
          for($byte_ctr = $utf8_marker; $byte_ctr > 1; $byte_ctr--) {
    
            // check if following chars are UTF8 additional data blocks
            // UTF8 and ord() > 127
            if( (ord($utf{$str_pos + 1}) & 192) == 128 ) {
              $new_val = $new_val << 6;
              $str_off++;
              // no need for Addition, bitwise OR is sufficient
              // 63: more UTF8-bytes; 0011 1111
              $new_val = $new_val | ( ord( $utf{$str_pos + $str_off} ) & 63 );
            }
            // no UTF8, but ord() > 127
            // nevertheless convert first char to NCE
            else {
              $new_val = $old_val;
            }
          }
          // build NCE-Code
          $html .= '&#'.$new_val.';';
          // Skip additional UTF-8-Bytes
          $str_pos = $str_pos + $str_off;
        }
        else {
          $html .= chr($old_val);
          $new_val = $old_val;
        }
      }
      return($html);
    }