Imagemagick rename in "Convert"

[McKenzie]

The program is actually called "convert", not imagemagick at my provider, so I get always an error (Unknown Error) at uploading when I use the "Imagemagick"-Setting. Where must I rename it into "Convert"? The path is right, so the problem should be the "wrong" name.

[Nibbler]

You just need to enter the correct path in config. It's called 'convert' for everyone, you don't need to rename anything. Convert is just one of a number of programs that make up ImageMagick.

[McKenzie]

I enter the correct path (I also ask at the support desk and they told it also). But it doen't work. 

[Nibbler]

Look at the example that's provided; you just enter the path without 'convert', so just "/usr/bin/".

[McKenzie]

I done that, it works but the filesize/quality etc. are the same as in GD2, so how can that be?.  How can I make sure, that I use IM and not GD2?

[Joachim Müller]

Well, nobody said that ImageMagick would produce superior quality (compared to GD2). After all, you're using jpeg, a lossy format. Every re-calculation of an image comes with a certain loss of quality. That is particularly the case for jpeg files. The difference between ImageMagick and GD mainly lie in the number of image file types that it supports: ImageMagick can cope with a number of files that GD can't cope with. However, those image file types are nearly irrelevant on web pages. Both GD2 as well as ImageMagick can cope with jpeg, png and gif, which are the most important image file types on the internet. The additional file types that ImageMagick can cope with (like tif or bmp) result in much bigger file sizes, so they usually are not an option on the web.
If the quality of resized images really bothers you, then resize the pics on your client before uploading them in the first place. However, as your site is community-based I can see that this is not an option for you.
What you might want to look into is the fact that you can specify additional command line parameters for ImageMagick - maybe you can find parameters that will increase image quality slightly. I must confess though that I don't have much experience with ImageMagick's command line parameters.

[eruss]

I had this problem after upgrading to PHP 5.2.6 and ImageMagick 6.4.2.1.  My path was set correctly but the thumbnails would not create.  I had to edit php.ini for my site as follows:

Find:

Code Select Expand


disable_functions = exec,passthru,popen,proc_open,shell_exec,system


Change to:

Code Select Expand


disable_functions = passthru,popen,proc_open,shell_exec,system


The path for ImageMagic on my server is /usr/local/bin/ but I have also seen /usr/bin/

This may be unique to my host so your YMMV.  After the edit, it works again.

[Joachim Müller]

Thanks for posting your remarks. The convert executable of ImageMagick is being called from within PHP using the exec command. Of course you can only use ImageMagick on your webserver if the exec command hasn't been disabled. However, most users on shared webhosting can not change the section you refered to in php.ini, as it can be abused for many silly things as well, so there is a good reason why most webhosts disallow it in the first place.