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Lol, thanks for the reply. So you're saying I can use an echo in an image then and I'm missing something? Let's just use the example from the PHP Manual (php.net/imagettftext) to create a very simple image with only a text phrase in it: <?php // Set the content-type header('Content-Type: image/png'); // Create the image $im = imagecreatetruecolor(400, 30); // Create some colors $white = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255); $grey = imagecolorallocate($im, 128, 128, 128); $black = imagecolorallocate($im, 0, 0, 0); imagefilledrectangle($im, 0, 0, 399, 29, $white); // The text to draw $text = 'Testing...'; // Replace path by your own font path $font = 'arial.ttf'; // Add some shadow to the text imagettftext($im, 20, 0, 11, 21, $grey, $font, $text); // Add the text imagettftext($im, 20, 0, 10, 20, $black, $font, $text); // Using imagepng() results in clearer text compared with imagejpeg() imagepng($im); imagedestroy($im); ?> If the $font you are loading in this code exists on the server, this will just load a PNG image with the word "Testing..." Now try using a simple echo statement. Echo anything. Now try and run the PHP and it will just load as a broken image. This is why I'm looking for an alternative to echoing a json_encode(). Thanks.

So traditionally you use "echo json_encode(array of data to return)" to return data to AJAX, but the problem is my PHP file is a PNG image - header("Content-type: image/png"); imagepng($image); So I can't echo anything or else the image based from a PHP file will just fail. Is there an alternative way to return data to AJAX without echoing anything? I sure appreciate any help anyone could give me. Thanks!