Configuration & Drivers

Learn how to create and configure Intervention Image. Discover the image manager, driver options (GD, Imagick or libvips), and advanced settings like auto-orientation, animation decoding, and blending colors.

• Create a new Image Manager Instance
  • Driver Selection
  • Configuration Options
• Create a new Image Manager Instance with Static Helper Methods
  • Static Constructor
  • Static GD Driver Constructor
  • Static Imagick Driver Constructor
• Access Image Manager's Driver

Create a new Image Manager Instance

public ImageManager::__construct(string|DriverInterface $driver, mixed ...$options): ImageManager

The image manager is the starting point for all operations. With this class you determine the driver to use, the configuration options and call the methods needed for reading images from different sources.

Driver Selection

The driver determines which PHP image library is used under the hood. Intervention Image is a universal API for various low-level PHP image extensions and currently ships with two different drivers. Depending on your PHP installation, you choose one of them.

Driver for GD Library

GD is bundled by default in many installations, but has the disadvantage of lacking advanced image processing capabilities like support for different color spaces. GD also discards any Exif data in the encoding process. The driver for GD is included by default.

• Intervention\Image\Drivers\Gd\Driver

Driver for Imagick

Imagick is a PHP extension that provides bindings to the ImageMagick library, which is a popular and powerful image processing tool. In my experience, this extension often delivers higher quality results than GD. The driver is included by default.

• Intervention\Image\Drivers\Imagick\Driver

Driver for libvips

libvips is a fast, low-memory image processing library that outperforms all other PHP image extensions libraries. Support for this processing library is available via Intervention Image's official driver to use Intervention Image with libvips which can be installed additionally.

• Intervention\Image\Drivers\Vips\Driver

Configuration Options

Optionally, it is possible to pass further detailed configuration parameters to the constructor that determine the behavior of the library.

These parameters affect how the library handles the orientation of the image according to Exif data, whether animations are decoded or discarded, and what the default blending color is.

Parameters

Example

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

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

// alternatively create new manager instance by class name and default configuration
$manager = new ImageManager(Driver::class);

// same call with configuration options
$manager = new ImageManager(
    Driver::class,
    autoOrientation: false,
    decodeAnimation: true,
    blendingColor: 'ff5500',
    strip: false
);

Create a new Image Manager Instance with Static Helper Methods

Static Constructor

public static ImageManager::withDriver(string|DriverInterface $driver, mixed ...$options): ImageManager

The static helper method acts the same way as the constructor and takes either a class name or an instance of the driver and optionally configuration parameters.

See possible options for configuration.

Parameters

Example

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

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

// or create new manager by class name
$manager = ImageManager::withDriver(Driver::class);

// same call with configuration options
$manager = ImageManager::withDriver(
    Driver::class,
    autoOrientation: true,
    decodeAnimation: true,
    blendingColor: 'ff5500',
    strip: true
);

Static GD Driver Constructor

public static ImageManager::gd(mixed ...$options): ImageManager

This static helper methods for GD driver creates a new image manager instance directly without arguments or optional configuration options.

See possible options for configuration.

Parameters

Example

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;

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

// same call with configuration options
$manager = ImageManager::gd(autoOrientation: false);

Static Imagick Driver Constructor

public static ImageManager::imagick(mixed ...$options): ImageManager

This static helper methods takes no arguments and creates a new image manager instance with Imagick driver directly.

See possible options for configuration.

Parameters

Example

use Intervention\Image\ImageManager;

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

// same call with configuration options
$manager = ImageManager::imagick(blendingColor: 'fff000');

Access Image Manager's Driver

public ImageManager::driver(): DriverInterface

As already described, the Image Manger is created with a driver instance as a dependency. This function ensures that it can be accessed at a later point in time.

Example

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

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

// access driver from image manager
$driver = $manager->driver();

Read more about the different methods of the image manager in the instantiation section