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ImageMagick is a very popular image editing suite, and for good reasons. It's command-based and is very capable; making it perfect as a backend to many other image manipulation tools.

The default image library for PHP is GD. You can use ImageMagick to replace GD in PHP by installing php-imagick PHP module for Ubuntu.

Tutorial video:

Install ImageMagick PHP module (imagick) on Ubuntu:

  1. Open terminal from the application launcher or via the <ctrl> + <alt> + <t> keyboard shortcut.
  2. Update apt's package list. 
    $ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for user:
Hit:1 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco InRelease
Hit:2 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco-updates InRelease
Hit:3 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco-backports InRelease
Hit:4 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco-security InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
3 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
  3. Install php-imagick package via apt. 
    $ sudo apt install --assume-yes php-imagick
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core fonts-droid-fallback fonts-noto-mono ghostscript gsfonts
  imagemagick-6-common libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3 libcups2
  libcupsfilters1 libcupsimage2 libfftw3-double3 libfontconfig1 libgomp1 libgs9 libgs9-common
  libijs-0.35 libjbig0 libjbig2dec0 libjpeg-turbo8 libjpeg8 liblcms2-2 liblqr-1-0 libltdl7
  libmagickcore-6.q16-6 libmagickwand-6.q16-6 libpaper-utils libpaper1 libtiff5 libwebp6
  php-common php7.2-cli php7.2-common php7.2-json php7.2-opcache php7.2-phpdbg php7.2-readline
  poppler-data ttf-dejavu-core
Suggested packages:
  fonts-noto ghostscript-x cups-common libfftw3-bin libfftw3-dev liblcms2-utils
  libmagickcore-6.q16-6-extra php-pear poppler-utils fonts-japanese-mincho | fonts-ipafont-mincho
  fonts-japanese-gothic | fonts-ipafont-gothic fonts-arphic-ukai fonts-arphic-uming fonts-nanum
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core fonts-droid-fallback fonts-noto-mono ghostscript gsfonts
  imagemagick-6-common libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3 libcups2
  libcupsfilters1 libcupsimage2 libfftw3-double3 libfontconfig1 libgomp1 libgs9 libgs9-common
  libijs-0.35 libjbig0 libjbig2dec0 libjpeg-turbo8 libjpeg8 liblcms2-2 liblqr-1-0 libltdl7
  libmagickcore-6.q16-6 libmagickwand-6.q16-6 libpaper-utils libpaper1 libtiff5 libwebp6
  php-common php-imagick php7.2-cli php7.2-common php7.2-json php7.2-opcache php7.2-phpdbg
  php7.2-readline poppler-data ttf-dejavu-core
0 upgraded, 42 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Need to get 23.3 MB of archives.
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  4. Check if imagick module is loaded by PHP to confirm installation was successful. 
    $ php --modules | grep imagick
imagick
  5. Restart Apache or any other services dependent on PHP. 
    $ sudo systemctl restart apache2
author: shakir