Imagemagick versus GD for PHP applications...

[cgm225]

Do you use imagemagick or GD for your PHP applications and why?

[tippy_102]

Is use GD because imagemagick isn't installed on the isp I use for hosted sites.

[zq29]

I use a mixture of both, just because some tasks are easier and quicker in one rather than the other. I find things like captchas easier to code using GD, but doing simple things such as re-size/scaling and cropping a lot quicker and easier using ImageMagick.

 

I guess GD has the advantage of being able to dump its output to the browser easier, which is good for on-the-fly images where as ImageMagick would probably be better for batch processing or more processor heavy tasks as I don't think PHP waits for IM finish what it's doing before continuing with the rest of the script - I may be wrong on that though, as some execution functions have the option to output the CLI result...

[Stopofeger]

imagemagick is although powerful than GD but GD is native in php while imagemagick must be used through shell commands. So, GD is available in most servers.

I use a mixture of both, just because some tasks are easier and quicker in one rather than the other. I find things like captchas easier to code using GD, but doing simple things such as re-size/scaling and cropping a lot quicker and easier using ImageMagick.

There are some really cool classes for GD available at phpclasses that can make these image manipulation a breeze.