GD and imagemagick

[Orp]

I just upgraded from 3.09 to 3.54. Images used to work fine. Now they don't. For example the image generated for a new user verification is no longer working.

It appears GD is not loaded on my server but imagemagick5.?? is. How ever vb requires imagemagick6.
Which do you use GD or imagemagick and what are the advantages / disadvantages of each.
Thanks.

[Joe Gronlund]

Imagemagick is said to be more clear, and better quality than GD. If you have a dedicated server, rebuild apache with GD included.

Do you want to know how to install imagemagick 6? Or are you on a shared server??

[Orp]

Imagemagick is said to be more clear, and better quality than GD. If you have a dedicated server, rebuild apache with GD included.

Do you want to know how to install imagemagick 6? Or are you on a shared server??

Thanks for the reply Joe. Did you mean to type rebuild Apache with Imagemagick included? Since you said it was better i thought that is what you were recommending.

I would like instructions for loading / setting up both if possible. (I'm on my own server)

How long have IM version 6 been out? I thought it was pretty cutting edge.

[Joe Gronlund]

Thanks for the reply Joe. Did you mean to type rebuild Apache with Imagemagick included? Since you said it was better i thought that is what you were recommending.

I would like instructions for loading / setting up both if possible. (I'm on my own server)

How long have IM version 6 been out? I thought it was pretty cutting edge.

No rebuild apache with GD included.

Here is how to install Imagemagick

Installing ImageMagick

First, if you already tried to install ImageMagick unsuccessfully, you need to uninstall it for this to work properly (trust me, I learned this after installing it 15 times over an old installation). To uninstall ImageMagick, go to your ImageMagick source directory and type:
make uninstall
1. ImageMagick needs a few support libraries to install properly. You can check for the header files in /usr/include and /usr/local/include to see if each library is installed. If you don't find one or all of them then they will need to be installed.
tiff.h
png.h
jpeglib.h
2. Download the following files and FTP them (via binary mode) to a directory on your server (in my case, I chose /home/techimo/imagemagick - that's a temporary directory for the source files):
ImageMagick-6.2.3-0.tar.gz
jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz
libpng-1.0.6.tar.gz
libtiff-lzw-compression-kit-1.1.tar.gz
tiff-v3.5.5.tar.gz
(If you want to download the files directly to your server instead of downloading and ftping, use these commands instead):
$ wget http://www.photopost.com/ImageMagick-6.2.3-0.tar.gz
$ wget http://www.photopost.com/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz
$ wget http://www.photopost.com/libpng-1.0.6.tar.gz
$ wget http://www.photopost.com/libtiff-lzw...kit-1.1.tar.gz
$ wget http://www.photopost.com/tiff-v3.5.5.tar.gz
Once the files are in your temporary imagemagick directory, uncompress them:
$ gunzip *.gz
Then unpack everything:
$ tar -xvf ImageMagick-6.2.3-0.tar
$ tar -xvf libpng-1.0.6.tar
$ tar -xvf libtiff-lzw-compression-kit-1.1.tar
$ tar -xvf jpegsrc.v6b.tar
$ tar -xvf tiff-v3.5.5.tar
then:
$ cd libpng-1.0.6
$ cd scripts
Now do an "ls" and look for the makefile that matches your operating system. If you can't find one for your OS, makefile.gcc should work. Copy the makefile to the libpng-1.0.6 directory:
$ cp makefile.linux ../makefile
In the line above, I used makefile.linux, but you should use your appropriate makefile. Continue:
$ cd ..
$ make
$ make install
$ cd ..
$ cd jpeg-6b
$ ./configure --enable-shared
$ make
$ make install
$ cd ..
(For this next part, if you don't have "pico", you can use "vi" instead)
$ cd libtiff-lzw-compression-kit
$ pico Makefile
change
TIFF_SRC_DIR = /tmp/libtiff
to
TIFF_SRC_DIR = ../tiff-v3.5.5
Then save and exit the Editor $ make install
$ cd ..
$ cd tiff-v3.5.5
$ ./configure
Answer yes to TIFF Configuration Parameters
$ make
$ make install
$ cd ..
$ cd ImageMagick-6.2.3
$ ./configure --enable-lzw=yes --enable-shared=yes --disable-static --without-perl
$ make
$ make install
Finally, verify the ImageMagick install worked properly, type
/usr/local/bin/convert logo: logo.gif

[Orp]

Thanks very much Joe. Awesome detailed directions.

One more question, how do you build Apache with GD included?

I'm on RH Linux. Is it assumed that GD is already installed? When viewing my VB General settings (VBoptions / Show All Settings) none of the images show up for GD or for imagemagick. I have imagemagick 5.7 installed, but I understand now I need IM6 or higher.
Thanks again!

[rnmcd]

I just upgraded from 3.5.3 to 3.5.4. Images used to work fine. Now they don't. For example the image generated for a new user verification is no longer working.

Any idea what the problem could be?

[Zachery]

Check over your settings.

[rnmcd]

Check over your settings.

I've checked over them scores and scores of times. I think the problem is with my host but I don't know what to tell them to do.

All I can ask them is to reinstall Ghostscript and Ghostscript fonts prior to installing Imagemagick, right?