Resizing the image in php for viewing purposes only

I would store the thumbnails so that you only have to do it once and they can be cached. If your aspect ratio is fixed, I would scale them down to fit in a 200x200 box (there are some php answers here about that so I'll skip it). If the aspect ratio varies, I would use a safe value so that it always covers your 150x150 box (like 300x300).

Then I would set the thumbnail image as a background image for the image box in css and you get exactly the effect you want:

.img_box {
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-position: center center;
  background-image: url(/path/to/image);
}

To enhance the experience for css3 capable browsers you can set:

background-size: cover;

to the box so that it fits exactly (maintaining aspect ratio).


You load the image, resize it first so that it has the minimum side being 150, then you crop to the 150 width/height relative to the center. Then you just output your image:

WideImage::load('yourfile.png/jpg/...')
    ->resize(150, 150, 'outside', 'any')
    ->crop('center', 'center', 150, 150)
    ->output('png');

You find the sourcecode, documentation, online demos and the API documentation here: WideImage.

Let me know if you've still got questions.


I use a simple PHP class which has several options for resizing. You can easily store the thumbnails via this class. As @jeroen said, you only have to do it once and they can be cached. It just requires PHP5 and GD library. Here is usage example:

// *** Include the class
include("resize-class.php");

// *** 1) Initialise / load image
$resizeObj = new resize('sample.jpg');

// *** 2) Resize image (options: exact, portrait, landscape, auto, crop)
$resizeObj -> resizeImage(150, 150, 'crop');

// *** 3) Save image ('image-name', 'quality [int]')
$resizeObj -> saveImage('sample-resized.jpg', 100);

And this is that class:

<?php
        Class resize
        {
            // *** Class variables
            private $image;
            private $width;
            private $height;
            private $imageResized;

            function __construct($fileName)
            {
                // *** Open up the file
                $this->image = $this->openImage($fileName);

                // *** Get width and height
                $this->width  = imagesx($this->image);
                $this->height = imagesy($this->image);
            }

            ## --------------------------------------------------------

            private function openImage($file)
            {
                // *** Get extension
                $extension = strtolower(strrchr($file, '.'));

                switch($extension)
                {
                    case '.jpg':
                    case '.jpeg':
                        $img = @imagecreatefromjpeg($file);
                        break;
                    case '.gif':
                        $img = @imagecreatefromgif($file);
                        break;
                    case '.png':
                        $img = @imagecreatefrompng($file);
                        break;
                    default:
                        $img = false;
                        break;
                }
                return $img;
            }

            ## --------------------------------------------------------

            public function resizeImage($newWidth, $newHeight, $option="auto")
            {
                // *** Get optimal width and height - based on $option
                $optionArray = $this->getDimensions($newWidth, $newHeight, $option);

                $optimalWidth  = $optionArray['optimalWidth'];
                $optimalHeight = $optionArray['optimalHeight'];


                // *** Resample - create image canvas of x, y size
                $this->imageResized = imagecreatetruecolor($optimalWidth, $optimalHeight);
                imagecopyresampled($this->imageResized, $this->image, 0, 0, 0, 0, $optimalWidth, $optimalHeight, $this->width, $this->height);


                // *** if option is 'crop', then crop too
                if ($option == 'crop') {
                    $this->crop($optimalWidth, $optimalHeight, $newWidth, $newHeight);
                }
            }

            ## --------------------------------------------------------

            private function getDimensions($newWidth, $newHeight, $option)
            {

               switch ($option)
                {
                    case 'exact':
                        $optimalWidth = $newWidth;
                        $optimalHeight= $newHeight;
                        break;
                    case 'portrait':
                        $optimalWidth = $this->getSizeByFixedHeight($newHeight);
                        $optimalHeight= $newHeight;
                        break;
                    case 'landscape':
                        $optimalWidth = $newWidth;
                        $optimalHeight= $this->getSizeByFixedWidth($newWidth);
                        break;
                    case 'auto':
                        $optionArray = $this->getSizeByAuto($newWidth, $newHeight);
                        $optimalWidth = $optionArray['optimalWidth'];
                        $optimalHeight = $optionArray['optimalHeight'];
                        break;
                    case 'crop':
                        $optionArray = $this->getOptimalCrop($newWidth, $newHeight);
                        $optimalWidth = $optionArray['optimalWidth'];
                        $optimalHeight = $optionArray['optimalHeight'];
                        break;
                }
                return array('optimalWidth' => $optimalWidth, 'optimalHeight' => $optimalHeight);
            }

            ## --------------------------------------------------------

            private function getSizeByFixedHeight($newHeight)
            {
                $ratio = $this->width / $this->height;
                $newWidth = $newHeight * $ratio;
                return $newWidth;
            }

            private function getSizeByFixedWidth($newWidth)
            {
                $ratio = $this->height / $this->width;
                $newHeight = $newWidth * $ratio;
                return $newHeight;
            }

            private function getSizeByAuto($newWidth, $newHeight)
            {
                if ($this->height < $this->width)
                // *** Image to be resized is wider (landscape)
                {
                    $optimalWidth = $newWidth;
                    $optimalHeight= $this->getSizeByFixedWidth($newWidth);
                }
                elseif ($this->height > $this->width)
                // *** Image to be resized is taller (portrait)
                {
                    $optimalWidth = $this->getSizeByFixedHeight($newHeight);
                    $optimalHeight= $newHeight;
                }
                else
                // *** Image to be resizerd is a square
                {
                    if ($newHeight < $newWidth) {
                        $optimalWidth = $newWidth;
                        $optimalHeight= $this->getSizeByFixedWidth($newWidth);
                    } else if ($newHeight > $newWidth) {
                        $optimalWidth = $this->getSizeByFixedHeight($newHeight);
                        $optimalHeight= $newHeight;
                    } else {
                        // *** Sqaure being resized to a square
                        $optimalWidth = $newWidth;
                        $optimalHeight= $newHeight;
                    }
                }

                return array('optimalWidth' => $optimalWidth, 'optimalHeight' => $optimalHeight);
            }

            ## --------------------------------------------------------

            private function getOptimalCrop($newWidth, $newHeight)
            {

                $heightRatio = $this->height / $newHeight;
                $widthRatio  = $this->width /  $newWidth;

                if ($heightRatio < $widthRatio) {
                    $optimalRatio = $heightRatio;
                } else {
                    $optimalRatio = $widthRatio;
                }

                $optimalHeight = $this->height / $optimalRatio;
                $optimalWidth  = $this->width  / $optimalRatio;

                return array('optimalWidth' => $optimalWidth, 'optimalHeight' => $optimalHeight);
            }

            ## --------------------------------------------------------

            private function crop($optimalWidth, $optimalHeight, $newWidth, $newHeight)
            {
                // *** Find center - this will be used for the crop
                $cropStartX = ( $optimalWidth / 2) - ( $newWidth /2 );
                $cropStartY = ( $optimalHeight/ 2) - ( $newHeight/2 );

                $crop = $this->imageResized;
                //imagedestroy($this->imageResized);

                // *** Now crop from center to exact requested size
                $this->imageResized = imagecreatetruecolor($newWidth , $newHeight);
                imagecopyresampled($this->imageResized, $crop , 0, 0, $cropStartX, $cropStartY, $newWidth, $newHeight , $newWidth, $newHeight);
            }

            ## --------------------------------------------------------

            public function saveImage($savePath, $imageQuality="100")
            {
                // *** Get extension
                $extension = strrchr($savePath, '.');
                $extension = strtolower($extension);

                switch($extension)
                {
                    case '.jpg':
                    case '.jpeg':
                        if (imagetypes() & IMG_JPG) {
                            imagejpeg($this->imageResized, $savePath, $imageQuality);
                        }
                        break;

                    case '.gif':
                        if (imagetypes() & IMG_GIF) {
                            imagegif($this->imageResized, $savePath);
                        }
                        break;

                    case '.png':
                        // *** Scale quality from 0-100 to 0-9
                        $scaleQuality = round(($imageQuality/100) * 9);

                        // *** Invert quality setting as 0 is best, not 9
                        $invertScaleQuality = 9 - $scaleQuality;

                        if (imagetypes() & IMG_PNG) {
                             imagepng($this->imageResized, $savePath, $invertScaleQuality);
                        }
                        break;

                    // ... etc

                    default:
                        // *** No extension - No save.
                        break;
                }

                imagedestroy($this->imageResized);
            }


            ## --------------------------------------------------------

        }
?>

It is very easy to use here is the class https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive-downloads/v2/code.google.com/timthumb/timthumb.php here are the params http://viralpatel.net/blogs/resize-image-dynamically-php/ I have tested looks works great

example is < img src="/script/timthumb.php?src=/some/path/myimage.png&w=100&h=80" alt="resized image" />

Remember that you should be careful to use this, If you do not create regex validation for input params you may have security vulnerability. That's why they deprecated this lib, but it works perfect.