Colors & Transparency

Explore advanced image color handling and transparency management with Intervention Image. Learn how to read and transform pixel colors, manage colorspaces, work with ICC profiles, and blend transparency for dynamic image processing.

• Color Information
  • Read Colors of Certain Pixels
  • Read all Colors of Certain Pixels in Animated Images
• Transforming Colors
  • Transform Colors to String Values
  • Transform Colors Between Colorspaces
• Colorspaces
  • Read the Image Colorspace
  • Change the Image Colorspace
• Color Profiles
  • Read Color Profiles
  • Set Color Profiles
  • Remove Color Profiles
• Transparency
  • Merge Transparent Areas with Color
  • Read the Blending Color
  • Set the Blending Color

Color Information

Read Colors of Certain Pixels

public Image::pickColor(int $x, int $y, int $frame_key = 0): ColorInterface

Reads the color of the pixel specified by the X and Y coordinates. You can also get the key of the frame from which the color is taken. This is only relevant for animated images.

Parameters

Example

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;
use Intervention\Image\Drivers\Gd\Driver;

// create new manager instance with desired driver
$manager = new ImageManager(Driver::class);

// read an image
$image = $manager->read('images/animation.gif');

// read color information for frame 10 at position 23/9
$color = $image->pickColor(23, 9, 10);

// 'f3fbe6'
$hex = $color->toHex();

// 'rgb(243, 251, 230)'
$string = $color->toString();

// (int) 243
$red = $color->red()->toInt();

// (int) 251
$green = $color->green()->toInt();

// (int) 230
$blue = $color->blue()->toInt();

// (int) 255
$alpha = $color->alpha()->toInt();

Read all Colors of Certain Pixels in Animated Images

public Image::pickColors(int $x, int $y): CollectionInterface

Reads all colors of the pixel specified via the X and Y coordinates and returns them in a collection. For animated images, this collection will contain all colors of the specified position for all frames. For non-animated images, the collection will contain only one color, because the image also contains only one frame.

Parameters

Example

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;
use Intervention\Image\Drivers\Imagick\Driver;

// create new manager instance with desired driver
$manager = new ImageManager(new Driver());

// read an image
$image = $manager->read('images/animation.gif');

// read color information at position
$colors = $image->pickColors(10, 10);

// first color
$color = $colors->first();

// color for certain frame
$color = $colors->get(6);

Transforming Colors

Once the pixel colors of an image have been read into an object, more options are available.

Transform Colors to String Values

public ColorInterface::toString(): ColorInterface

Each color object can also be output as a string. You can use the toString() method or to cast the object directly. Of course, the output depends on the respective color space.

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;
use Intervention\Image\Colors\Hsl\Colorspace as HslColorspace;

// create new manager instance with desired driver
$manager = ImageManager::gd();

// read an image
$image = $manager->read('images/example.png');

// read pixel color
$color = $image->pickColor(20, 10);

// transform color to string format
$result = $color->toString(); // "rgba(255, 255, 255, 1.0)"

// same result
$result = (string) $color;

Transform Colors Between Colorspaces

public ColorInterface::convertTo(string|ColorspaceInterface $colorspace): ColorInterface

Each color object has a method for converting into other color spaces. The target color space can be specified either as a string or as an object. This works even if the current driver does not support the target color space.

The following color spaces are available.

• Intervention\Image\Colors\Rgb\Colorspace
• Intervention\Image\Colors\Cmyk\Colorspace
• Intervention\Image\Colors\Hsv\Colorspace
• Intervention\Image\Colors\Hsl\Colorspace

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;
use Intervention\Image\Colors\Hsl\Colorspace as HslColorspace;

// create new manager instance with desired driver
$manager = ImageManager::imagick();

// read an image
$image = $manager->read('images/example.png');

// read pixel color
$color = $image->pickColor(20, 10);

$result = $color->toString(); // "rgba(0, 255, 255, 1.0)"

// transform color to hsl format
$hslColor = $color->convertTo(HslColorspace::class);

$result = $hslColor->toString(); // "hsl(180, 100, 50)"

Colorspaces

The supported colorspaces depend mainly on the driver used. While the Imagick driver supports RGB and CMYK colorspace, the GD driver is limited to the RGB colorspace.

When reading CMYK images with Intervention Image using the GD driver the images are automatically converted to RGB colorspace.

Read the Image Colorspace

public Image::colorspace(): ColorspaceInterface

This function reads the colorspace of the current image instance.

Example

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;
use Intervention\Image\Drivers\Gd\Driver;

// create new manager instance with desired driver
$manager = new ImageManager(Driver::class);

// reading an image
$image = $manager->read('images/example.jpg');

// read the colorspace object
$colorspace = $image->colorspace();

Change the Image Colorspace

public Image::setColorspace(string|ColorspaceInterface $colorspace): ImageInterface

This function converts the current image to the specified colorspace. The target colorspace can be specified either as an object, as a class name, or as an abbreviation of the colorspace.

Parameters

Example

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;
use Intervention\Image\Drivers\Imagick\Driver;
use Intervention\Image\Colors\Rgb\Colorspace as RgbColorspace;
use Intervention\Image\Colors\Cmyk\Colorspace as CmykColorspace;

// create new manager instance with desired driver
$manager = new ImageManager(new Driver());

// reading an image
$image = $manager->read('images/example.jpg');

// transform image to CMYK by abbreviation
$colorspace = $image->setColorspace('cmyk');

// transform image to rgb again by class name
$colorspace = $image->setColorspace(RgbColorspace::class);

// and transform to cmyk again by object
$colorspace = $image->setColorspace(new CmykColorspace());

Color Profiles

Currently Intervention Image can only handle color profiles with the ìmagick driver.

Read Color Profiles

public Image::profile(): ProfileInterface

This function reads the ICC color profile from the current image instance. If no profile is found an ColorException is thrown.

Example

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;
use Intervention\Image\Drivers\Imagick\Driver;

// create new manager instance with desired driver
$manager = new ImageManager(new Driver());

// read an image
$image = $manager->read('images/example.jpg');

// read the icc profile
$profile = $image->profile();

// save profile in file system
$profile->save('my_profile.icc')

Set Color Profiles

public function setProfile(ProfileInterface $profile): ImageInterface

This function applies a given ICC color profile to the current image instance. The function takes an instance of ProfileInterface::class as an argument.

Parameters

Example

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;
use Intervention\Image\Drivers\Imagick\Driver;
use Intervention\Image\Colors\Profile;

// create new manager instance with desired driver
$manager = new ImageManager(Driver::class);

// reading an image
$image = $manager->read('images/example.jpg');

// set the new color profile
$image->setProfile(Profile::fromPath('profiles/profile.icc'));

Remove Color Profiles

public function removeProfile(): ImageInterface

Removes all color profiles from the current image.

Example

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;
use Intervention\Image\Drivers\Imagick\Driver;

// create new manager instance with desired driver
$manager = new ImageManager(Driver::class);

// read image and remove profile
$image = $manager->read('images/example.jpg')->removeProfile();

Transparency

Intervention Image supports image formats with alpha channels. Transparent areas are preserved as long as the output format supports transparency.

If the output format does not support transparency, no alpha channel can be preserved. In this case the transparent areas will be blended with an opaque color. This color can be specified in advance in the initial configuration of the image manager or as an optional argument in the following method. It is also possible to set or get the blending color at runtime.

Merge Transparent Areas with Color

public function blendTransparency(mixed $color = null): ImageInterface

When switching to a non-transparent image format, the transparency is automatically replaced with the configured blending color, but this can also be done manually. This function call can also be applied to image formats that can actually contain transparency.

The color parameter can optionally be used to specify a color in the common color formats. By default, this is the current or previously configured blending color. Note that any transparency values in the blend color will be ignored.

Parameters

Example

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;
use Intervention\Image\Drivers\Gd\Driver;

// create new manager instance with desired driver and default blending color
$manager = new ImageManager(Driver::class);

// read a transparent image
$image = $manager->read('images/example.png');

// merge the transparent areas with orange
$image->blendTransparency('f50');

Read the Blending Color

public function blendingColor(): ColorInterface

Return the currently set blending color as an instance of ColorInterface::class. This corresponds either to the color originally configured through the ImageManager or the blending color that was last set.

Set the Blending Color

public function setBlendingColor(mixed $color): ImageInterface

Set a new blending color in the configuration of the current image instance. This color will be used as the default for all subsequent operations that use a blend color, overwriting the original value defined in the ImageManager configuration.

Parameters

Example

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;
use Intervention\Image\Drivers\Gd\Driver;

// create new manager instance with desired driver and red as blending color
$manager = new ImageManager(Driver::class, blendingColor: 'ff0000');

// read image
$image = $manager->read('images/example.png');

// read configured blending color
$blendingColor = $image->blendingColor(); // 'ff0000'

// set grey as blending color
$image->setBlendingColor('cccccc');

// read last set blending color
$blendingColor = $image->blendingColor(); // 'cccccc'