Question

I’m trying to use the following PHP in order to apply randomly generated text files to an image. (I’m just using a random image right now.)

<?php
header ("Content-type: image/png");

$textfile = "quote.txt";
$quotes = array();
if(file_exists($textfile)){
$quotes = file($textfile);
srand ((float) microtime() * 10000000);
$string = $quotes[array_rand($quotes)];
$string = substr($string,0,strlen($string)-1);
}
else{
$string = "No 'Quote' available at this time.";
}


//$string = "your text";
// try changing this as well
$font = 4;
$width = imagefontwidth($font) * strlen($string) ;
$height = imagefontheight($font) ;
$im = imagecreatefrompng("test.png");
$x = imagesx($im) - $width ;
$y = imagesy($im) - $height;
$backgroundColor = imagecolorallocate ($im, 255, 255, 255);
$textColor = imagecolorallocate ($im, 0, 0,0);
imagestring ($im, $font, $x, $y,  $string, $textColor);
imagepng($im);
ImageDestroy($im);
?>

However, when I run that code the imported image just becomes very blockish.
Here is the image I am testing with:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/LhNkv.png

And here is how it actually appears:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/AAcHZ.png

My research shows that “imagecreate” generates a “palette” image – and I thought that might have something to do with my error, but I have seen plenty of examples where the base image is by no means distorted.

Thanks in advance for your insights.

(Ugh. It wouldn’t let me post images but let me upload them just fine?)

Update
Changing the code to:

<?php
header ("Content-type: image/png");

$textfile = "quote.txt";
$quotes = array();
if(file_exists($textfile)){
$quotes = file($textfile);
srand ((float) microtime() * 10000000);
$string = $quotes[array_rand($quotes)];
$string = substr($string,0,strlen($string)-1);
}
else{
$string = "No 'Quote' available at this time.";
}


//$string = "your text";
// try changing this as well
$font = 4;
$width = imagefontwidth($font) * strlen($string) ;
$height = imagefontheight($font) ;
$im = imagecreatefrompng("test.png");
//$x = imagesx($im) - $width ;
//$y = imagesy($im) - $height;
//$backgroundColor = imagecolorallocate ($im, 255, 255, 255);
//$textColor = imagecolorallocate ($im, 0, 0,0);
//imagestring ($im, $font, $x, $y,  $string, $textColor);
imagepng($im);
ImageDestroy($im);
?>

Produces the same block-like effects as above, except now no text is being written to the image, either (obviously?).

Answer 1

Could be an alpha blending problem. Try adding these before saving the image:

imagealphablending($im, true); 
imagesavealpha($im, true);