Cannot save image after adding a watermark

[Marchiuzzz]

Hi, I'm trying to add a watermark for an image, however I keep getting a "pending" request after hitting submit that just ends up in timeout after a few minutes. The code that I'm trying to execute

$imageWatermarked = \Spatie\Image\Image::load($path.'/'.$imageName);
          $imageWatermarked->watermark($waterMarkImage) 
            ->watermarkPosition(\Spatie\Image\Manipulations::POSITION_CENTER)
            ->watermarkOpacity(20);
          if(!file_exists($path.'/bog01_watermark.png') && is_writable($path)){
            $imageWatermarked->save($path.'/bog01_watermark.png');
          }else{
            return $path;
          }

I can verify that $path.'/'.$imageName file exists, so does $waterMarkImage. No error is being thrown. If I remove the part of watermark generation and leave only the image load and image save, it works. I have also figured out that it hangs on the "save" line, if removed, my script does not hang. Any ideas what could be the cause?