Introduction to ImageMagick

ImageMagick® is a software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images.
It can read, convert and write images in a variety of formats (over 100)
including DPX, EXR, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PDF, PhotoCD, PNG, Postscript, SVG,
and TIFF. Use ImageMagick to translate, flip, mirror, rotate, scale, shear and
transform images, adjust image colors, apply various special effects, or draw
text, lines, polygons, ellipses and Bézier curves.

The functionality of ImageMagick is typically utilized from the command line
or you can use the features from programs written in your favorite programming
language. Choose from these interfaces: G2F (Ada), MagickCore (C), MagickWand
(C), ChMagick (Ch), ImageMagickObject (COM+), Magick++ (C++), JMagick (Java),
L-Magick (Lisp), NMagick (Neko/haXe), MagickNet (.NET), PascalMagick (Pascal),
PerlMagick (Perl), MagickWand for PHP (PHP), IMagick (PHP), PythonMagick
(Python), RMagick (Ruby), or TclMagick (Tcl/TK). With a language interface,
use ImageMagick to modify or create images dynamically and automagically.

ImageMagick is free software delivered as a ready-to-run binary distribution
or as source code that you may freely use, copy, modify, and distribute. Its
license is compatible with the GPL. It runs on all major operating systems.
Features and Capabilities

Here are just a few examples of what ImageMagick can do:

    * Format conversion: convert an image from one format to another (e.g. PNG
      to JPEG)
    * Transform: resize, rotate, crop, flip or trim an image
    * Transparency: render portions of an image invisible
    * Draw: add shapes or text to an image
    * Decorate: add a border or frame to an image
    * Special effects: blur, sharpen, threshold, or tint an image
    * Animation: create a GIF animation sequence from a group of images
    * Text & comments: insert descriptive or artistic text in an image
    * Image identification: describe the format and properties of an image
    * Composite: overlap one image over another
    * Montage: juxtapose image thumbnails on an image canvas
    * Motion picture support: read and write the common image formats used in
      digital film work
    * Image calculator: apply a mathematical expression to an image or image
      channels
    * High dynamic-range images: accurately represent the wide range of
    * intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from the brightest direct
      sunlight to the deepest darkest shadows
    * Large image support: read, process, or write mega- and giga-pixel image
      sizes
    * Encipher or decipher an image: convert ordinary images into
      unintelligible gibberish and back again
    * Threads of execution support: ImageMagick is thread safe and many
      internal algorithms are already threaded to take advantage of speed-ups
      offered by the dual and quad-core processor technologies

For more information, see http://www.imagemagick.org.

Examples of Imagemagick Usage, http://www.imagemagick.org/usage/,
shows how to use ImageMagick from the command-line to accomplish any
of these tasks and much more. Also, see Fred's ImageMagick Scripts,
http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/, a plethora of command-line scripts
that perform geometric transforms, blurs, sharpens, edging, noise removal,
and color manipulations.

