herb miller

Here are some instructions for installing Imagick for PHP 8 on Windows 10.

If you’re running PHP 8 on Windows and you want to use the Imagick PHP extension then you may want to refer to this post for some download and installation instructions.

Background

In 2016 I had a need for the Imagick PHP Extension to correct the orientation of images uploaded to WordPress. Finding that the installation wasn’t a doddle, I wrote a blog post entitled Installing Imagick for PHP 7 on Windows 10. It appears that this post is quite popular. 6 years later on I’ve decided that it might be a good idea to write a more up to date post. This time it’s for PHP 8.0 and Windows 10; it may also work on Windows 11.

The secret to the installation was finding the correct hint for the location of the ImageMagick binary files upon which the Imagick PHP extension is dependent.

I hope that you’ll find these notes to be useful.

Overview

• Imagick is a native PHP extension to create and modify images using the ImageMagick API.
• It provides a DLL that you need to install as an extension to your PHP installation.

For my PHP 8 installation…

• I followed my own instructions and picked the versions I needed for my current version of PHP.
• I had to modify the instructions slightly.
• I didn’t have as many problems.
• It appears you no longer need to install ImageMagick for the Imagick PHP extension to work.

Installation

• Determine your version of PHP, whether or not it’s Thread Safe, and the architecture.
• Download the Imagick extension you need.
• Extract the .dll files from the Imagick extension zip file.
• Change php.ini to enable the php_imagick extension.
• Reboot.
• Test.

If you want to be able to use ImageMagick’s programs, such as IMDisplay.exe

• Download the compatible version of ImageMagick.
• Install ImageMagick to a directory of your choice.
• Set the environment to enable the ImageMagick DLLs to be found.

Determine your version of PHP

Use php -i to run phpinfo() and look at the first few lines of the output

phpinfo()
PHP Version => 8.0.2

System => Windows NT SB 10.0 build 19043 (Windows 10) AMD64
Build Date => Feb  3 2021 18:29:02
Build System => Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Standard [10.0.14393]
Compiler => Visual C++ 2019
Architecture => x64
...
Debug Build => no
Thread Safety => enabled
Thread API => Windows Threads
...

Download the Imagick extension you need

• Visit http://windows.php.net/downloads/pecl/releases/imagick/
• Download a version compatible with your version of PHP.
• eg php_imagick-3.7.0-8.0-ts-vs16-x64.zip which is the Thread Safe version for x64 architecture.

Change php.ini to enable the php_imagick extension

Determine the directory for extensions by checking for the extension_dir directive in your phpinfo output.

...
Directive => Local Value => Master Value
...
extension_dir => C:\php\ext => C:\php\ext
...

If the top level directory doesn’t match that from which PHP is run then you should either correct the local value or fully qualify the file name of the extension.

Since I’d extracted the DLLs into C:\Imagick, I fully qualified the entry in the php.ini file.

extension=c:\Imagick/php_imagick.dll

Reboot

Rebooting is the simplest way of ensuring that your system notices the changes you have made.

If you’re just running PHP from the Command Prompt you should be able to get away with closing one and opening a new Command Prompt.

Or you may choose to use ApacheMonitor to stop and restart your web server. But this may not pick up system environment changes.

Test

• Check your phpinfo() output shows a non-zero value for ImageMagick number of supported formats. You should see something like this

ImageMagick number of supported formats:  => 263

• Also test phpinfo from your browser. Expect the same result.

• Try some code.

Test in WordPress Site Health

Use the WordPress Site Health tool ( Dashboard > Tools > Site Health > Info tab ) to confirm the Active editor for Media Handling.

Active editor: GD

Initially, before installing Imagick, the value could be WP_Image_Editor_GD.

Active editor: Imagick

With Imagick correctly configured the Active editor becomes WP_Image_Editor_imagick.

imagick

imagick module => enabled
imagick module version => 3.7.0
imagick classes => Imagick, ImagickDraw, ImagickPixel, ImagickPixelIterator, ImagickKernel
Imagick compiled with ImageMagick version => ImageMagick 7.1.0-18 Q16 x64 2021-12-14 https://imagemagick.org
Imagick using ImageMagick library version => ImageMagick 7.1.0-18 Q16 x64 2021-12-14 https://imagemagick.org
ImageMagick copyright => (C) 1999-2021 ImageMagick Studio LLC
ImageMagick release date => 2021-12-14
ImageMagick number of supported formats:  => 263
ImageMagick supported formats => 3FR, 3G2, 3GP, AAI, AI, APNG, ART, ARW, ASHLAR, AVI, AVIF, AVS, BGR, BGRA, BGRO, BIE, BMP, BMP2, BMP3, BRF, CAL, CALS, CANVAS, CAPTION, CIN, CIP, CLIP, CLIPBOARD, CMYK, CMYKA, CR2, CR3, CRW, CUBE, CUR, CUT, DATA, DCM, DCR, DCRAW, DCX, DDS, DFONT, DJVU, DNG, DOT, DPS, DPX, DXT1, DXT5, EMF, EPDF, EPI, EPS, EPS2, EPS3, EPSF, EPSI, EPT, EPT2, EPT3, ERF, EXR, FARBFELD, FAX, FF, FILE, FITS, FL32, FLIF, FLV, FPX, FRACTAL, FTP, FTS, G3, G4, GIF, GIF87, GRADIENT, GRAY, GRAYA, GROUP4, GV, HALD, HDR, HEIC, HEIF, HISTOGRAM, HRZ, HTM, HTML, HTTP, HTTPS, ICB, ICO, ICON, IIQ, INFO, INLINE, IPL, ISOBRL, ISOBRL6, J2C, J2K, JBG, JBIG, JNG, JNX, JP2, JPC, JPE, JPEG, JPG, JPM, JPS, JPT, JSON, JXL, K25, KDC, KERNEL, LABEL, M2V, M4V, MAC, MAP, MASK, MAT, MATTE, MEF, MIFF, MKV, MNG, MONO, MOV, MP4, MPC, MPEG, MPG, MRW, MSL, MSVG, MTV, MVG, NEF, NRW, NULL, ORA, ORF, OTB, OTF, PAL, PALM, PAM, PANGO, PATTERN, PBM, PCD, PCDS, PCL, PCT, PCX, PDB, PDF, PDFA, PEF, PES, PFA, PFB, PFM, PGM, PGX, PHM, PICON, PICT, PIX, PJPEG, PLASMA, PNG, PNG00, PNG24, PNG32, PNG48, PNG64, PNG8, PNM, POCKETMOD, PPM, PS, PS2, PS3, PSB, PSD, PTIF, PWP, RADIAL-GRADIENT, RAF, RAS, RAW, RGB, RGB565, RGBA, RGBO, RGF, RLA, RLE, RMF, RSVG, RW2, SCR, SCREENSHOT, SCT, SFW, SGI, SHTML, SIX, SIXEL, SPARSE-COLOR, SR2, SRF, STEGANO, SUN, SVG, SVGZ, TEXT, TGA, THUMBNAIL, TIFF, TIFF64, TILE, TIM, TM2, TTC, TTF, TXT, UBRL, UBRL6, UIL, UYVY, VDA, VICAR, VID, VIFF, VIPS, VST, WBMP, WEBM, WEBP, WMF, WMV, WPG, X3F, XBM, XC, XCF, XPM, XPS, XV, YAML, YCbCr, YCbCrA, YUV

Directive => Local Value => Master Value
imagick.allow_zero_dimension_images => 0 => 0
imagick.locale_fix => 0 => 0
imagick.progress_monitor => 0 => 0
imagick.set_single_thread => 1 => 1
imagick.shutdown_sleep_count => 10 => 10
imagick.skip_version_check => 0 => 0

Basic problem determination

If you get the following when running php -i

Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'C:\Imagick/php_imagick.dll' 
(tried: C:\Imagick/php_imagick.dll (The specified module could not be found), 
C:\php\ext\php_C:\Imagick/php_imagick.dll.dll (The specified module could not be found)) 
in Unknown on line 0

then you will need to make sure the dependent DLLs are correctly installed.

In phpinfo output, if you do not have the correct version of ImageMagick installed and configured then you will probably see

ImageMagick number of supported formats: => 0
ImageMagick supported formats =>

Summary of downloads

My local installation

Environment variables

References

See also Installing Imagick for PHP 7 on Windows 10

• ImageMagick
• PHP Image Processing and Generation
• Imagick PHP extension Imagick/imagick