Imagemagick exec and convert
image-processing, imagemagick, php
Solution
I can't answer your questions directly but thought I point you to a few resources:
Regarding which is better, exec or the PHP extension, I asked this same question a few months ago:
Should I use a PHP extension for ImageMagick or just use PHP's Exec() function to run the terminal commands?
For all Image Magick PHP functions you should look up the official guide:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/book.imagick.php
I switched from Image Magick to Graphics Magick as I heard it has better performance. It is a fork of Image Magick with an emphasis on performance. Large sites like Flickr and Etsy use it:
http://www.graphicsmagick.org/
This guide got me started:
http://devzone.zend.com/1559/manipulating-images-with-php-and-graphicsmagick/
And they have their own manual on php.net:
http://php.net/manual/en/book.gmagick.php (most of the commands are identical to Image Magick's)
Problem
I recently started using imagemagick with php and I'm relatively new with both of these, IM and PHP. So, I'm here to ask for some help/suggestion(s). First If lets say a user uploads a gif or a png image on my site and I want it converted to jpg, is there any command like for example.`$image->convert($file,'.jpg)` or the convert command is accesible only thru `exec()` ? like for example `exec(convert picture.png` to picture.jpg) Second What if for again, the user uploads gif/png on the site and I resize the image to a specified width/height and write the image, with the writeImage function of IM like this: `$image->writeImage(basename.$ext)` where `$ext` = jpg. Will this work properly,is this a good practice? I assume this will only rename it but still, I don't see a problem in this... o.O Oh sorry one more question, I'm not very familiar with exec, is it better using imagemagick using `exec()`, does it improve speed, load etc?