1 Introduction to ImageMagick
3 ImageMagick® is a software suite to create, edit, compose, or convert
4 bitmap images. It can read and write images in a variety of formats (over
5 200) including PNG, JPEG, GIF, HEIC, TIFF, DPX, EXR, WebP, Postscript,
6 PDF, and SVG. Use ImageMagick to resize, flip, mirror, rotate, distort,
7 shear and transform images, adjust image colors, apply various special
8 effects, or draw text, lines, polygons, ellipses and Bézier curves.
10 The functionality of ImageMagick is typically utilized from the command
11 line or you can use the features from programs written in your favorite
12 language. Choose from these interfaces: G2F (Ada), MagickCore (C),
13 MagickWand (C), ChMagick (Ch), ImageMagickObject (COM+), Magick++ (C++),
14 JMagick (Java), L-Magick (Lisp), Lua, NMagick (Neko/haXe), Magick.NET
15 (.NET), PascalMagick (Pascal), PerlMagick (Perl), MagickWand for PHP
16 (PHP), IMagick (PHP), PythonMagick (Python), RMagick (Ruby), or TclMagick
17 (Tcl/TK). With a language interface, use ImageMagick to modify or create
18 images dynamically and automagically.
20 ImageMagick utilizes multiple computational threads to increase performance
21 and can read, process, or write mega-, giga-, or tera-pixel image sizes.
23 ImageMagick is free software delivered as a ready-to-run binary distribution
24 or as source code that you may use, copy, modify, and distribute in both open
25 and proprietary applications. It is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.
27 The ImageMagick development process ensures a stable API and ABI. Before
28 each ImageMagick release, we perform a comprehensive security assessment
29 that includes memory error and thread data race detection to prevent
30 security vulnerabilities.
32 The current release is the ImageMagick 7.0.8-* series. It runs on Linux,
33 Windows, Mac Os X, iOS, Android OS, and others.
35 The authoritative ImageMagick web site is https://www.imagemagick.org. The
36 authoritative source code repository is https://github.com/ImageMagick. We
37 maintain a source code mirror at https://gitlab.com/ImageMagick.
39 We continue to maintain the legacy release of ImageMagick, version 6,
40 at https://legacy.imagemagick.org.
43 Features and Capabilities
45 Here are just a few examples of what ImageMagick can do:
47 * Format conversion: convert an image from one format to another (e.g.
49 * Transform: resize, rotate, deskew, crop, flip or trim an image.
50 * Transparency: render portions of an image invisible.
51 * Draw: add shapes or text to an image.
52 * Decorate: add a border or frame to an image.
53 * Special effects: blur, sharpen, threshold, or tint an image.
54 * Animation: create a GIF animation sequence from a group of images.
55 * Text & comments: insert descriptive or artistic text in an image.
56 * Image gradients: create a gradual blend of one color whose shape is
57 horizontal, vertical, circular, or ellipical.
58 * Image identification: describe the format and attributes of an image.
59 * Composite: overlap one image over another.
60 * Montage: juxtapose image thumbnails on an image canvas.
61 * Generalized pixel distortion: correct for, or induce image distortions
62 including perspective.
63 * Computer vision: Canny edge detection.
64 * Morphology of shapes: extract features, describe shapes and recognize
66 * Motion picture support: read and write the common image formats used in
68 * Image calculator: apply a mathematical expression to an image or image
70 * Connected component labeling: uniquely label connected regions in an
72 * Discrete Fourier transform: implements the forward and inverse DFT.
73 * Perceptual hash: maps visually identical images to the same or similar
74 hash-- useful in image retrieval, authentication, indexing, or copy
75 detection as well as digital watermarking.
76 * Complex text layout: bidirectional text support and shaping.
77 * Color management: accurate color management with color profiles or in
78 lieu of-- built-in gamma compression or expansion as demanded by the
80 * High dynamic-range images: accurately represent the wide range of
81 intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from the brightest direct
82 sunlight to the deepest darkest shadows.
83 * Encipher or decipher an image: convert ordinary images into
84 unintelligible gibberish and back again.
85 * Virtual pixel support: convenient access to pixels outside the image
87 * Large image support: read, process, or write mega-, giga-, or
88 tera-pixel image sizes.
89 * Threads of execution support: ImageMagick is thread safe and most
90 internal algorithms are OpenMP-enabled to take advantage of speed-ups
91 offered by multicore processor chips.
92 * Distributed pixel cache: offload intermediate pixel storage to one or
94 * Heterogeneous distributed processing: certain algorithms are
95 OpenCL-enabled to take advantage of speed-ups offered by executing in
96 concert across heterogeneous platforms consisting of CPUs, GPUs, and
98 * ImageMagick on the iPhone: convert, edit, or compose images on your
101 Examples of ImageMagick Usage * https://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/
102 shows how to use ImageMagick from the command-line to accomplish any
103 of these tasks and much more. Also, see Fred's ImageMagick Scripts @
104 http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/: a plethora of command-line scripts
105 that perform geometric transforms, blurs, sharpens, edging, noise removal,
106 and color manipulations. With Magick.NET, use ImageMagick without having
107 to install ImageMagick on your server or desktop.
112 Now that ImageMagick version 7 is released, we continue
113 to maintain the legacy release of ImageMagick, version 6, at
114 https://legacy.imagemagick.org. Learn how ImageMagick version 7 differs
115 from previous versions with our porting guide.
117 ImageMagick best practices strongly encourages you to configure a security
118 policy that suits your local environment.
120 As an analog to linear (RGB) and non-linear (sRGB) color colorspaces, as
121 of ImageMagick 7.0.7-17, we introduce the LinearGray colorspace. Gray is
122 non-linear grayscale and LinearGray is linear (e.g. -colorspace linear-gray).
124 Want more performance from ImageMagick? Try these options:
126 Add more memory to your system, see the pixel cache; Add more cores to
127 your system, see threads of execution support; push large images to a
128 solid-state drive, see large image support.
130 If these options are prohibitive, you can reduce the quality of the image
131 results. The default build is Q16 HDRI. If you disable HDRI, you use
132 half the memory and instead of predominately floating point operations,
133 you use the typically more efficient integer operations. The tradeoff
134 is reduced precision and you cannot process out of range pixel values
135 (e.g. negative). If you build the Q8 non-HDRI version of ImageMagick,
136 you again reduce the memory requirements in half-- and once again there
137 is a tradeoff, even less precision and no out of range pixel values. For
138 a Q8 non-HDRI build of ImageMagick, use these configure script options:
139 --with-quantum-depth=8 --disable-hdri.