Install ImageMagick (Image Manipulation) Tool on RHEL/CentOS and Fedora

ImageMagick is a free open source simple software suite for any kind of image manipulation that is used for creating, editing, converting, displaying image files.

It can able to read and write over 200 image files such as JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, and Photo CD image formats and it is also used for thumbnail or captcha generation. It also includes command-line options for creating transparent or animated gif image formats and many more features like resize, sharpen, rotate or add special effects to an image.

To use the ImageMagick tool with PHP or Perl programming language, you will need to install ImageMagick with the Imagick PHP extension for PHP and ImageMagick-Perl extension for Perl.

Imagick is a simple PHP extension for creating and modifying images using the ImageMagick API program. There is a confusion in name, as people think that ImageMagick and Imagick both are the same, but you can use ImageMagick without Imagick extension but you need both installed on your machine to use and run it.

Installing ImageMagick from Repository

First, install following prerequisite php-pear, php-devel and gcc packages to compile the Imagick PHP extension.

# yum install php-pear php-devel gcc 

Once you’ve installed php-pear, php-devel, and gcc packages, you may now install ImageMagick software for PHP and Perl support using yum command.

# yum install ImageMagick ImageMagick-devel ImageMagick-perl

IMPORTANT: ImageMagick is not available in CentOS/RHEL 8, and it has been replaced with GraphicsMagick instead, which is a fork of ImageMagick.

To install GraphicsMagick on CentOS/RHEL 8, run the following command.

# dnf info GraphicsMagick
# dnf install GraphicsMagick GraphicsMagick-devel GraphicsMagick-perl

Next, verify that ImageMagick has been installed on your system by checking its version.

# convert --version
 
Version: ImageMagick 6.7.8-9 2019-02-01 Q16 http://www.imagemagick.org
Copyright: Copyright (C) 1999-2012 ImageMagick Studio LLC
Features: OpenMP    

CentOS/RHEL 8 users, can run the following command to verify the version of GraphicsMagick installed on the system.

# gm version

GraphicsMagick 1.3.33 2019-07-20 Q16 http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
Copyright (C) 2002-2019 GraphicsMagick Group.
Additional copyrights and licenses apply to this software.
See http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/www/Copyright.html for details.

Installing ImageMagick 7 from Source Code

To install ImageMagick from source, you need a proper development environment with a compiler and related development tools. If you don’t have the required packages on your system, install development tools as shown:

# yum groupinstall 'Development Tools'
# yum -y install bzip2-devel freetype-devel libjpeg-devel libpng-devel libtiff-devel giflib-devel zlib-devel ghostscript-devel djvulibre-devel libwmf-devel jasper-devel libtool-ltdl-devel libX11-devel libXext-devel libXt-devel lcms-devel libxml2-devel librsvg2-devel OpenEXR-devel php-devel

Now, download the latest version of the ImageMagick source code using the following wget command and extract it.

# wget https://www.imagemagick.org/download/ImageMagick.tar.gz
# tar xvzf ImageMagick.tar.gz

Configure and compile the ImageMagick source code. Depending on your server hardware specs, this may take some time to finish.

# cd ImageMagick*
# ./configure
# make
# make install

Verify that the ImageMagick compile and install were successful.

# magick -version

Version: ImageMagick 7.0.8-28 Q16 x86_64 2019-02-19 https://imagemagick.org
Copyright: © 1999-2019 ImageMagick Studio LLC
License: https://imagemagick.org/script/license.php
Features: Cipher DPC HDRI OpenMP 
Delegates (built-in): bzlib djvu fontconfig freetype jng jpeg lzma openexr pangocairo png tiff wmf x xml zlib

Install Imagick PHP Extension

Next, compile the Imagick for PHP extension. To do, simply run the following ‘pecl‘ command. It will install ImageMagick and imagick PHP extension module ‘imagick.so‘ under /usr/lib/php/modules directory. If you are using a 64-bit system, the module directory path would be /usr/lib64/php/modules.

Note: It will ask you to provide Imagemagick installation prefix, simply hit enter to auto-detect.

# pecl install imagick 

downloading imagick-3.4.3.tgz ...
Starting to download imagick-3.4.3.tgz (245,410 bytes)
...................................................done: 245,410 bytes
19 source files, building
running: phpize
Configuring for:
PHP Api Version:         20100412
Zend Module Api No:      20100525
Zend Extension Api No:   220100525
Please provide the prefix of Imagemagick installation [autodetect] : 

Now, add the ‘imagick.so‘ extension to ‘/etc/php.ini‘ file.

echo extension=imagick.so >> /etc/php.ini

Next, restart Apache webserver.

# service httpd restart

Verify the Imagick PHP extension by running the following command. You will see the Imagick extension similar to below.

# php -m | grep imagick

imagick

Install GMagick PHP Extension

Run the following commands to compile and install GMagick PHP Extension.

# cd /usr/local/src
# wget https://pecl.php.net/get/gmagick
# tar xfvz gmagick
# cd gmagick-*
# phpize
# ./configure
# make
# make install

Now, add the ‘gmagick.so‘ extension to ‘/etc/php.ini‘ file.

# echo extension=gmagick.so >> /etc/php.ini

Next, restart the Apache webserver.

# systemctl restart httpd

Verify gmagick PHP extension by running the following command.

# php -m | grep gmagick

gmagick

Alternatively, you can create a file called ‘phpinfo.php‘ under website root directory (ex: /var/www/html/).

# vi /var/www/html/phpinfo.php

Add the following code.

<?php

     phpinfo ();
?>

Open your favorite web browser and type ‘http://localhost/phpinfo.php‘ or ‘http://ip-addresss/phpinfo.php‘ and verify the extension.