Charcoal Image

Charcoal Image is a PHP image manipulation and processing library, providing a consistent API across different Image drivers. Currently supported drivers are Imagick (the PHP extension) and Imagemagick (using shell commands)

• API Documentation

How to install

The preferred (and only supported) way of installing charcoal-image is with composer:

$ composer require locomotivemtl/charcoal-image

Dependencies

• PHP 5.6+
• locomotivemtl/charcoal-factory
• ext-imagick (optional but recommended) OR
• ImageMagick binaries

👉 Although this module was developped for Charcoal, there is absolutely no dependencies on any Charcoal modules and can therefore be used in any PHP project.

Why another PHP image libary?

Why not?. Charcoal-Image has been developped and used in in-house projects for almost 10 years. It has recently been rewritten to a more modern PHP style and released under an open-source license (MIT).

The main differences between existing PHP libraries like Imagine or Intervention are:

• Effect parameters are sent as an array.
  • Is it blur($sigma, $radius) or blur($radius, $sigma)?
  • With charcoal image it's constant: blur([ 'radius' => $radius, 'sigma' => $sigma ]);
• It supports ImageMagick binaries
  • It seems to be a pretty common setup where Imagemagick is installed on a server, but the Imagick PHP library is not. charcoal-image can be used
• No external dependencies, except the tiny charcoal-factory.

Usage

Typically, charcoal-image is used to load an image, perform operations (called effects such as blur, resize, watermark, etc.) and write the modified image.

With setData()

All effects can be added at once in a single array.

$img = new \Charcoal\Image\Imagick\ImagickImage();
$img->setData([
    'source'  => 'example.png',
    'target'  => 'example-modified.png',
    'effects' => [
        [
            'type'  => 'resize',
            'width' => 600
        ],
        [
            'type'  => 'blur',
            'mode'  => 'gaussian',
            'sigma' => 5
        ]
    ]
]);
$img->process();
$img->save();

setData() is perfect for scenario where the effects are from a JSON configuration structure, for example.

With magic methods

All effects can also be used as methods on the image (using __call() magic).

use Charcoal\Image\Imagick\ImagickImage as Image;

$img = new Image();
$img->open('example.png');
$img->resize([
    'width' => 600
]);
$img->blur([
    'mode'  => 'gaussian',
    'sigma' => 5
]);
$img->save();

Chainable version

Also shown: using the ImageFactory constructor method:

use \Charcoal\Image\ImageFactory;

$factory = new ImageFactory();
$img = $factory->create('imagemagick');
$img->open('example.png')
    ->resize([
        'mode'   => 'best_fit',
        'width'  => 350
        'height' => 350
    ])
    ->rotate([
        'angle' => 90
    ])
    ->modulate([
        'luminance' => 50
    ])
    ->save('modified-target.png');

Available effects and operations are documented in the API Documentation.

Available image drivers

There are currently only 2 available drivers:

• imagick
  • The imagick driver use the Imagick PHP extension, which is build on top of imagemagick.
• imagemagick
  • The imagemagick driver uses the imagmagick binaries directly, running the operations in a separate shell process instead of directely within PHP.
  • The commands convert, mogrify and identify should be installed on the system and reachable from the PHP process.

👉 Comming soon, the gd driver to use PHP builtin's image capacity.

How to select a driver

There are two different ways to instantiate an Image object for a specific driver.

Directly:

$img = new \Charcoal\Image\Imagick\ImagickImage();
// or
$img = new \Charcoal\Image\Imagemagick\ImagemagickImage();

With the provided ImageFactory:

use \Charcoal\Image\ImageFactory;
$factory = new ImageFactory();

$img = $factory->create('imagick');
// or
$img = $factory->create('imagemagick');

Development

To install the development environment:

★ composer install --prefer-source

To run the tests:

★ composer test

Coding Style

All Charcoal modules follow the same coding style and charcoal-image is no exception. For PHP:

• PSR-1
• PSR-2
• PSR-4, autoloading is therefore provided by Composer
• phpDocumentor
• Arrays should be written in short notation ([] instead of array())

Coding styles are enforced with grunt phpcs (PHP Code Sniffer). The actual ruleset can be found in phpcs.xml.

👉 To fix minor coding style problems, run grunt phpcbf (PHP Code Beautifier and Fixer). This tool uses the same ruleset as phpcs to automatically correct coding standard violations.

The main PHP structure follow the PSR-4 standard. Autoloading is therefore provided by Composer.

To ensure a clean code base, pre-commit git hooks should be installed on all development environments.

Continuous Integration

• Travis
• Sensio Labs
• Scrutinizer

Unit Tests

Every class, method, and function should be covered by unit tests. PHP code can be tested with PHPUnit.

Authors

• Mathieu Ducharme mat@locomotive.ca

Changelog

0.3

Released 2016-03-11

• Break BC in every way.
• Convert to camelCase / Full PSR-1 / PSR-2 support.

0.2

Released 2015-09-15

• Add a new "auto-orientation" effect (imagick + imagemagick)
• Add the watermark effect to imagemagick (imagemagick)
• Fixed the "unsharp mask" mode for sharpen effect (imagick)
• Fixed the gravity for the watermark effect (imagick)
• Accept ImageInterface objects as watermark (global)
• Add a dependency on locomotivemtl/charcoal-factory and fix factories accordingly. (global)

0.1

Released 2015-08-26

• Initial release

TODOs

• Write a version for PHP's gd driver.
• Custom Exceptions.
• Change effect signature to be callable (invokable) instead of using the process() method.
• Skip unit tests instead of failing if a driver is not available.