How do I install Imagemagick?

[TeeJay]

My buddy and I are trying something that requires calls to imagemagick. I've search for it but I did not see anything current.
If so:
1.) Is this an old application? What is a comparable program?
2.) Is this supported on a shared server? I'm on adrastea and I did not see it in my own home directory usr/bin
3.) Am I allowed to install it myself or do I open a support ticket to have it installed for me?

[Ron]

Did you try typing:

whereis mogrify

Or

whereis convert

Or

man mogrify

For more information about the mogrify command, point your browser to
file:///usr/share/doc/ImageMagick-6.4.0/www/mogrify.html
or
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/mogrify.php

Overview:
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php

[JPC-Anoop]

ImageMagick is installed in adrastea.

-------------
root@adrastea [~]# /usr/bin/convert --version
Version: ImageMagick 6.4.0 04/22/08 Q16 http://www.imagemagick.org
Copyright: Copyright (C) 1999-2008 ImageMagick Studio LLC
-------------

Please open a ticket if you need any assistance on this.

Regards,
Anoop | Support Dept.
JaguarPC.com

[jason]

As Ron sort of pointed out, there is no "ImageMagick" program. It is, instead, a package of several small programs used to do various types of image manipulation. The program most commonly used by scripts is the one called "mogrify," so a good way to check in ImageMagick is installed is to type "which mogrify" on the command line.

There are several similar, but not directly compatible, command line image manipulation tools out there. Among the more common ones are GD (which is technically a library, though support for it is built into PHP and there are command line tools like fly that use it) and Netpmb.

--Jason

[TeeJay]

Thanks for all the replies, guys. I performed "whereis mogrify" command, and it returned the following paths:

/usr/bin/mogrify /usr/share/man/man1/mogrify.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/mogrify.1

So ImageMagick is under /usr/bin directory. The part that I am having trouble with is this error I got when trying out a PHP test script that contains only this code:

<?php
$canvas = new Imagick();
?>

The error is:

Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: imagick in /home/domain_name/public_html/test.php on line 2

It seems like I am not pointing to the right directory path, so the Imagick() class is not known. Is there any way I can provide a path to ImageMagick (i.e. /usr/bin) inside the script? Am I heading in the right direction?

Many thanks!

[jason]

You are trying to access the ImageMagick extension for PHP. It isn't a normal part of the PHP distribution (in fact, I had never heard of it until about a week ago) and is therefore not included in JPC's standard PHP distribution. If you ask support they may be willing to install it for you. Ask them if they will install the "imagick extension from pecl" and hopefully they'll know what you're talking about.

--Jason

[TeeJay]

Thanks, Jason. Before I contact support to install PECL extension, is there any way I can run ImageMagick as is, e.g. bash scripts? Basically I want to create a web front-end to allow users to manipulate their images. PHP first came to mind since it is logical to process these commands on the server side. That is how I found out about Imagick() class. I would do it without PECL if there are other ways to access the ImageMagick commands. Thanks again.

[homoludens]

Is there a particular reason why you need Imagemagick over GD2? There's (probably) a bunch of image manipulation classes that use GD2 on phpclasses.org if you need something to do some of the heavy lifting for you.

[jason]

The most common way to do it is to call the command line programs from within PHP. See this section of the PHP manual for everything you need to know about doing this. Pay clase attention to the section on escaping shell argumetns (escapeshellarg) so that you don't open yourself up to any security breeches.

Lots of PHP scripts use ImageMagick this way, so you should be able to find examples. Like I said, I didn't even know the extension/object existed until about a week ago when I was doing some image manipulation work of my own and I was looking up one of the GD functions in the PHP Manual and noticed the inclusion.

--Jason

[TeeJay]

I am new to the image manipulation programs. I read from other forums, and people seem to prefer imagemagick over GD due to batch processing speed and overall picture quality. Has GD2 has been improved over GD?

From another forum, I just found out that I could call 'exec' command from my php script to issue imagemagick commands. Below is a simple example for those interested:

<?php
echo exec("convert -size '1024x512' gradient:snow-CornflowerBlue gradient.jpg");
?>

This will do the trick for now. One thing I am not sure is the security implication - if there is any - by calling 'exec' directly from the script.

Thank you for all your help! Appreciate it.

[jason]

I was just doing some simple resizing to make thumbnails. I didn't care too much about quality, so I went with GD because it was easiest to use in my environment. I have heard ImageMagick is superior, but to be honest, I do so little with image manipulation, I've never worried about it.

The only security implication with calling exec() is being aware of what you pass to it. If you need to pass user-provided arguments to an exec command, just be sure to escape those values (using escapeshellargs() and I mentioned previously) and you should be fine.

--Jason

[homoludens]

As far as I understand IM has more shiny, cool stuff, but GD is better in most other respects. I recall benchmarks suggesting that GD was substantially faster than IM for resizing, etc, so if you really care about resources you might want to look into that.

Ultimately, it's like nix / windows / mac / whatever. Whatever tool suits you best.

I do so little with image manipulation, I've never worried about it.

Same. A few thumbnails with some fancy cropping is all I ever do in terms of images. And I found that shockingly easy to do with GD and PHP.

[homoludens]

It seems a few people are complaining about IM not having a stable enough API. If you get bored, you might want to check out, GraphicsMagick (a fork) which has a stable API and claims to be much faster.

Flickr use it, apparently. Although I suspect they really use a secret army of b3tans.

[VinDSL]

Odd!

I'm an ImageMagick fanboi from way back! It rawks!

I used ImageMagick on JagPC, well before it was officially sanctioned, by uploading pre-compiled files to the server.

I also use ImageMagick on my desktop machines, and personal web server, here at the abode.

The reason I say this is odd...

I just updated my local install(s). There was a SECURITY UPDATE on 1-June!

http://secunia.com/advisories/35216/ (ImageMagick "XMakeImage()" Integer Overflow Vuln)

If you're running ImageMagick, I highly recommend that you update it ASAP!

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php (ImageMagick Binaries)

Hrm...

I wonder if I should mention this to Tech Support. I'll go check the version on 'my server'...

Whoops!

Version: ImageMagick 6.4.0 04/22/08 Q16 http://www.imagemagick.org
Copyright: Copyright (C) 1999-2008 ImageMagick Studio LLC

Current ver: ImageMagick 6.5.3

[JPC-Tracie]

Rizwan is looking into this.