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How to check if an image is grayscale in PHP

 

Category: Programming/PHP

Images, even if they are big or small are usually full of colour. However, in certain situations you may want to check if an image is indeed grayscale or not. You can do this using PHP and its image manipulation functions.

How to extract RGB values from an image using PHP

RGB stands for Red, Green, and Blue - together forming a colorimetric system (color model) frequently used. Any color image can be represented in this system - the three channels can be used to manipulate the image in various ways.

However, in PHP, user doesn't have direct access to pixel values directly from memory and, most important, doesn't have access even to each channel separately by default.

In order to extract the RGB values, first we need each pixel value - for this, you can simply use the ImageColorAt() function, function bundled into the GD library.

Of course, in order to know the position of each pixel, one important thing to know is the image width and height. These can be extracted either using getimagesize() or, when you create an image object imagesx() and imagesy().
$source_file = "test_image.jpg";

$im = ImageCreateFromJpeg ($source_file);

$imgw = imagesx($im);
$imgh = imagesy($im);
Of course, you can use different functions to load GIF or PNG files, but no other changes are needed whatsoever in any of the processing part.
$r = array();
$g = array();
$b = array();

for ($i=0; $i<$imgw; $i++)
{
        for ($j=0; $j<$imgh; $j++)
        {
       
                // get the rgb value for current pixel
               
                $rgb = ImageColorAt($im, $i, $j);
               
                // extract each value for r, g, b
               
                $r[$i][$j] = ($rgb >> 16) & 0xFF;
                $g[$i][$j] = ($rgb >> 8) & 0xFF;
                $b[$i][$j] = $rgb & 0xFF;
               
       
        }
}
At the end of this script, the variables $r, $g, $b will have the apropriate values for each pixel.

Grayscale or true color?

Now, as an application for these values, we could check if an image is grayscale or true color.

Grayscale images have the property that every pixel only contains a gray value - which mathematically can be defined as pixels which have the $r, $g and $b value equal.

The script that is listed counts the number of gray pixels and compares it with the number of total pixels (width * height).
<?php
$source_file = "test_image.jpg";

$im = ImageCreateFromJpeg($source_file);

$imgw = imagesx($im);
$imgh = imagesy($im);

$r = array();
$g = array();
$b = array();

$c = 0;

for ($i=0; $i<$imgw; $i++)
{
        for ($j=0; $j<$imgh; $j++)
        {
       
                // get the rgb value for current pixel
               
                $rgb = ImageColorAt($im, $i, $j);
               
                // extract each value for r, g, b
               
                $r[$i][$j] = ($rgb >> 16) & 0xFF;
                $g[$i][$j] = ($rgb >> 8) & 0xFF;
                $b[$i][$j] = $rgb & 0xFF;
               
                // count gray pixels (r=g=b)
               
                if ($r[$i][$j] == $g[$i][$j] && $r[$i][$j] == $b[$i][$j])
                {
                        $c++;
                }
       
        }
}

if ($c == ($imgw*$imgh))
{
        echo "The image is grayscale.";
}
else
{
        echo "The image is NOT grayscale.";
}

?>
Please note that image manipulation functions are particularly VERY slow in PHP. This example alone might not be the worst example, but avoid allowing insecure access to scripts that operate with such functions, or try to use various methods to limit access, since it use plenty of server resources.

Related links:

- source files (1K)
- PHP Image functions

Posted by: Indy on October 28, 2006 at 12:15.
 

» Comments

Saving Resources
You could save resources by breaking out of the loop when the average value doesn't equal, say, the red value. If it does step all the way through it's grayscale.

Posted by Steven Jackson on May 8, 2007 at 08:40 PM.

image checking is not working for the tiff formate
Great Work with PNG, JPG and gif , i want to check for the tiff format image.

But its not working for tiff.

Please help in this regard, it will be highly appreciated

Posted by jamal on July 17, 2011 at 11:13 AM.

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