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 Screenshot of display, with menu | |
| Original author(s) | John Cristy |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | ImageMagick Studio LLC |
| Initial release | August 1, 1990; 34 years ago (1990-08-01)[1] |
| Stable release | 7.1.1-47[2]  / 30 March 2025 |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Image manipulation |
| License | ImageMagick[3] |
| Website | imagemagick |
| Author | ImageMagick Studio LLC |
|---|---|
| SPDX identifier | ImageMagick[4] |
| Debian FSG compatible | Yes |
| GPL compatible | Yes |
| Linking from code with a different licence | Yes |
| Website | imagemagick |
ImageMagick, invoked from the command line asmagick, is afree and open-source[3] cross-platformsoftware suite for displaying, creating, converting, modifying, andeditingraster images. ImageMagick was created by John Cristy in 1987, and it can read and write over 200image file formats. It is widely used in open-source applications.
ImageMagick was created in 1987 by John Cristy when working atDuPont, to convert24-bit images (16 million colors) to8-bit images (256 colors), so they could be displayed on most screens at the time. It was freely released in 1990 when DuPont agreed to transfer copyright toImageMagick Studio LLC, still currently the project maintainer organization.[5][6][7]
In May 2016, it was reported that ImageMagick had a vulnerability through which an attacker can execute arbitrary code on servers that use the application to edit user-uploaded images.[8] Security researchers atCloudflare observed use of the vulnerability in active hacking attempts.[9] The security flaw was due to ImageMagick calling backend tools without first properly checking to ensure path and file names are free of improper shell commands.[10] The vulnerability did not affect ImageMagick distributions that included a properly configuredsecurity policy.[citation needed]
The software mainly consists of a number ofcommand-line interface utilities for manipulating images. ImageMagick does not have a robustgraphical user interface to edit images as doAdobe Photoshop andGIMP, but does include – forUnix-likeoperating systems – a basic nativeX WindowGUI (called IMDisplay) for rendering and manipulating images andAPI libraries for many programming languages. The program usesmagic numbers to identify imagefile formats.
A number of programs, such asDrupal,MediaWiki,phpBB, andvBulletin, can use ImageMagick to create imagethumbnails if installed. ImageMagick is also used by other programs, such asLyX, for converting images.
ImageMagick has a fully integratedPerlbinding called PerlMagick,[11] as well as many others: G2F (Ada), MagickCore (C), MagickWand (C), ChMagick (Ch), ImageMagickObject (COM+), Magick++ (C++), JMagick (Java), L-Magick (Lisp), NMagick (Neko/Haxe), MagickNet (.NET), PascalMagick (Pascal), MagickWand for PHP (PHP), IMagick (PHP), PythonMagick (Python), RMagick (Ruby), and TclMagick (Tcl/Tk).
One of the basic and thoroughly-implemented features of ImageMagick is its ability to efficiently and accurately convert images between different file formats (it uses the commandmagick to achieve this).
The number of colors in an image can be reduced to an arbitrary number by weighing the most prominent color values present among the pixels of the image.
A related capability is theposterization artistic effect, which also reduces the number of colors represented in an image. The difference between this and standard color quantization is that while in standard quantization the final palette is selected based upon a weighting of the prominence of existing colors in the image, posterization creates a palette of colors smoothly distributed across the spectrum represented in the image. Whereas with standard color quantization all of the final color values are ones that were in the original image, the color values in a posterized image may not have been present in the original image but are in between the original color values.
A fine control is provided for thedithering that occurs during color and shading alterations, including the ability to generatehalftone dithering.
In 2008, support forliquid rescaling was added.[12] This feature allows, for example,rescaling 4:3 images into 16:9 images without distorting the image.
ImageMagick includes a variety of filters and features intended to create artistic effects:
ImageMagick can useOpenCL to use an accelerated graphics card (GPU) for processing.[13]
The Q8 version supports up-to 8 bits-per-pixel component (8-bitgrayscale, 24- or 32-bitRGB color). The Q16 version supports up-to 16 bits-per-pixel component (16-bit grayscale, up-to 48- or 64-bit RGB color).
Below are some other features of ImageMagick:
ImageMagick iscross-platform, and runs onMicrosoft Windows andUnix-like systems includingLinux,macOS,iOS,Android,Solaris,Haiku andFreeBSD. The project'ssource code can be compiled for other systems, includingAmigaOS 4.0 andMorphOS. It has been run underIRIX.[14]
GraphicsMagick is afork of ImageMagick 5.5.2 made in 2002, emphasizing the cross-release stability of the programmingAPI and command-line options. GraphicsMagick emerged as a result of irreconcilable differences in the developers' group.[15]
Dr. Pensak had to convince upper management at DuPont. ... Either way, ImageMagick would not be available today without DuPont transferring the copyright to ImageMagick Studio LLC. ImageMagick was posted to Usenet's comp.archives group on August 1, 1990.
