1 Introduction to ImageMagick
3 ImageMagick®, http://www.imagemagick.org, is a software suite to create,
4 edit, and compose bitmap images. It can read, convert and write images in
5 a variety of formats (over 100) including DPX, EXR, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000,
6 PDF, PhotoCD, PNG, Postscript, SVG, and TIFF. Use ImageMagick to scale,
7 flip, mirror, rotate, distort, shear and transform images, adjust image
8 colors, apply various special effects, or draw text, lines, polygons,
9 ellipses and Bézier curves.
11 The functionality of ImageMagick is typically utilized from the command
12 line or you can use the features from programs written in your favorite
13 programming language. Choose from these interfaces: G2F (Ada), MagickCore
14 (C), MagickWand (C), ChMagick (Ch), ImageMagickObject (COM+), Magick++
15 (C++), JMagick (Java), L-Magick (Lisp), NMagick (Neko/haXe), MagickNet
16 (.NET), PascalMagick (Pascal), PerlMagick (Perl), MagickWand for PHP
17 (PHP), IMagick (PHP), PythonMagick (Python), RMagick (Ruby), or TclMagick
18 (Tcl/TK). With a language interface, use ImageMagick to modify or create
19 images dynamically and automagically.
21 ImageMagick is free software delivered as a ready-to-run binary distribution
22 or as source code that you may freely use, copy, modify, and distribute
23 in both open and proprietary applications. It is distributed under the
24 Apache 2.0 license, approved by the OSI and recommended for use by the OSSCC.
26 The ImageMagick development process ensures a stable API and ABI. Before
27 each ImageMagick release, we perform a comprehensive security assessment
28 that includes memory and thread error detection to prevent security
31 Features and Capabilities
33 Here are just a few examples of what ImageMagick can do:
35 * Format conversion: convert an image from one format to another (e.g.
37 * Transform: resize, rotate, crop, flip or trim an image.
38 * Transparency: render portions of an image invisible.
39 * Draw: add shapes or text to an image.
40 * Decorate: add a border or frame to an image.
41 * Special effects: blur, sharpen, threshold, or tint an image.
42 * Animation: create a GIF animation sequence from a group of images.
43 * Text & comments: insert descriptive or artistic text in an image.
44 * Image identification: describe the format and attributes of an image.
45 * Composite: overlap one image over another.
46 * Montage: juxtapose image thumbnails on an image canvas.
47 * Generalized pixel distortion: correct for, or induce image distortions
48 including perspective.
49 * Computer vision: Canny edge detection.
50 * Morphology of shapes: extract features, describe shapes and recognize
52 * Motion picture support: read and write the common image formats used in
54 * Image calculator: apply a mathematical expression to an image or image
56 * Discrete Fourier transform: implements the forward and inverse DFT.
57 * Perceptual hash: maps visually identical images to the same or similar
58 hash-- useful in image retrieval, authentication, indexing, or copy
59 detection as well as digital watermarking.
60 * Color management: accurate color management with color profiles or in
61 lieu of-- built-in gamma compression or expansion as demanded by the
63 * High dynamic-range images: accurately represent the wide range of
64 intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from the brightest direct
65 sunlight to the deepest darkest shadows.
66 * Encipher or decipher an image: convert ordinary images into
67 unintelligible gibberish and back again.
68 * Virtual pixel support: convenient access to pixels outside the image
70 * Large image support: read, process, or write mega-, giga-, or
71 tera-pixel image sizes.
72 * Threads of execution support: ImageMagick is thread safe and most
73 internal algorithms are OpenMP-enabled to take advantage of speed-ups
74 offered by multicore processor chips.
75 * Distributed pixel cache: offload intermediate pixel storage to one or
77 * Heterogeneous distributed processing: certain algorithms are
78 OpenCL-enabled to take advantage of speed-ups offered by executing in
79 concert across heterogeneous platforms consisting of CPUs, GPUs, and
81 * ImageMagick on the iPhone: convert, edit, or compose images on your
84 Examples of ImageMagick Usage, http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/, shows how
85 to use ImageMagick from the command-line to accomplish any of these tasks and
86 much more. Also, see Fred's ImageMagick Scripts,
87 http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/: a plethora of command-line scripts
88 that perform geometric transforms, blurs, sharpens, edging, noise removal,
89 and color manipulations.