How do I resize pngs with transparency in PHP?

Question

I'm attempting to resize pngs with transparent backgrounds in PHP and the code samples I've found online don't work for me. Here's the code I'm using, advice will be much appreciated!

$this->image = imagecreatefrompng($filename);

imagesavealpha($this->image, true);
$newImage = imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height);

// Make a new transparent image and turn off alpha blending to keep the alpha channel
$background = imagecolorallocatealpha($newImage, 255, 255, 255, 127);
imagecolortransparent($newImage, $background);
imagealphablending($newImage, false);
imagesavealpha($newImage, true);

imagecopyresampled($newImage, $this->image, 0, 0, 0, 0, $width, $height,  $this->getWidth(), $this->getHeight());
$this->image = $newImage;  
imagepng($this->image,$filename);

Update By 'not working' I meant to say the background color changes to black when I resize pngs.

Answer 1

From what I can tell, you need to set the blending mode to false, and the save alpha channel flag to true before you the imagecolorallocatealpha()

<?php
 $newImg = imagecreatetruecolor($nWidth, $nHeight);
 imagealphablending($newImg, false);
 imagesavealpha($newImg,true);
 $transparent = imagecolorallocatealpha($newImg, 255, 255, 255, 127);
 imagefilledrectangle($newImg, 0, 0, $nWidth, $nHeight, $transparent);
 imagecopyresampled($newImg, $im, 0, 0, 0, 0, $nWidth, $nHeight,
                      $imgInfo[0], $imgInfo[1]);
?>

Answer 2

The filling of the new image with a transparent colour is also required (as Dycey coded but I'm guessing forgot to mention :)), not just the 'strategic' saving by itself.

IIRC, you also need to be sure PNGs are 24bit, ie truecolor, and not 8bit to avoid buggy behaviour.

Answer 3

old thread, but just in case - Dycey's example should work, if you name things correctly. Here is a modified version used in my image resizing class. Notice the check to make sure imagecolorallocatealpha() is defined, which it won't be if you are using GD <2.0.8

  /**
     * usually when people use PNGs, it's because they need alpha channel 
     * support (that means transparency kids). So here we jump through some 
     * hoops to create a big transparent rectangle which the resampled image 
     * will be copied on top of. This will prevent GD from using its default 
     * background, which is black, and almost never correct. Why GD doesn't do 
     * this automatically, is a good question.
     *
     * @param $w int width of target image
     * @param $h int height of target image
     * @return void
     * @private
     */
    function _preallocate_transparency($w, $h) {
        if (!empty($this->filetype) && !empty($this->new_img) && $this->filetype == 'image/png')) {
            if (function_exists('imagecolorallocatealpha')) {
                imagealphablending($this->new_img, false);
                imagesavealpha($this->new_img, true);
                $transparent = imagecolorallocatealpha($this->new_img, 255, 255, 255, 127);
                imagefilledrectangle($this->new_img, 0, 0, $tw, $th, $transparent);
            }
        }
    }