A ruby wrapper for ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick command line.

I was using RMagick and loving it, but it was eating up huge amounts of memory. Even a simple script would use over 100MB of RAM. On my local machine this wasn't a problem, but on my hosting server the ruby apps would crash because of their 100MB memory limit.

Using MiniMagick the ruby processes memory remains small (it spawns ImageMagick's command line program mogrify which takes up some memory as well, but is much smaller compared to RMagick). See Thinking of switching from RMagick? below.

MiniMagick gives you access to all the command line options ImageMagick has (found here).

ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick command-line tool has to be installed. You can check if you have it installed by running

$ magick -version
Version: ImageMagick 7.1.1-33 Q16-HDRI aarch64 22263 https://imagemagick.org
Copyright: (C) 1999 ImageMagick Studio LLC
License: https://imagemagick.org/script/license.php
Features: Cipher DPC HDRI Modules OpenMP(5.0)
Delegates (built-in): bzlib fontconfig freetype gslib heic jng jp2 jpeg jxl lcms lqr ltdl lzma openexr png ps raw tiff webp xml zlib zstd
Compiler: gcc (4.2)

Add the gem to your Gemfile:

gem "mini_magick"

• API documentation

Let's first see a basic example of resizing an image.

require "mini_magick"

image = MiniMagick::Image.open("input.jpg")
image.path #=> "/var/folders/k7/6zx6dx6x7ys3rv3srh0nyfj00000gn/T/magick20140921-75881-1yho3zc.jpg"
image.resize "100x100"
image.format "png"
image.write "output.png"

MiniMagick::Image.open makes a copy of the image, and further methods modify that copy (the original stays untouched). We then resize the image, and write it to a file. The writing part is necessary because the copy is just temporary, it gets garbage collected when we lose reference to the image.

MiniMagick::Image.open also accepts URLs, and options passed in will be forwarded to open-uri.

image = MiniMagick::Image.open("http://example.com/image.jpg")
image.contrast
image.write("from_internets.jpg")

On the other hand, if we want the original image to actually get modified, we can use MiniMagick::Image.new.

image = MiniMagick::Image.new("input.jpg")
image.path #=> "input.jpg"
image.resize "100x100"
# Not calling #write, because it's not a copy

While using methods like #resize directly is convenient, if we use more methods in this way, it quickly becomes inefficient, because it calls the command on each methods call. MiniMagick::Image#combine_options takes multiple options and from them builds one single command.

image.combine_options do |b|
  b.resize "250x200>"
  b.rotate "-90"
  b.flip
end # the command gets executed

As a handy shortcut, MiniMagick::Image.new also accepts an optional block which is used to combine_options.

image = MiniMagick::Image.new("input.jpg") do |b|
  b.resize "250x200>"
  b.rotate "-90"
  b.flip
end # the command gets executed

The yielded builder is an instance of MiniMagick::Tool::Mogrify. To learn more about its interface, see Metal below.

A MiniMagick::Image has various handy attributes.

image.type        #=> "JPEG"
image.mime_type   #=> "image/jpeg"
image.width       #=> 250
image.height      #=> 300
image.dimensions  #=> [250, 300]
image.size        #=> 3451 (in bytes)
image.colorspace  #=> "DirectClass sRGB"
image.exif        #=> {"DateTimeOriginal" => "2013:09:04 08:03:39", ...}
image.resolution  #=> [75, 75]
image.signature   #=> "60a7848c4ca6e36b8e2c5dea632ecdc29e9637791d2c59ebf7a54c0c6a74ef7e"

If you need more control, you can also access raw image attributes:

image["%[gamma]"] # "0.9"

To get the all information about the image, MiniMagick gives you a handy method which returns the output from identify -verbose in hash format:

image.data #=>
# {
#   "format": "JPEG",
#   "mimeType": "image/jpeg",
#   "class": "DirectClass",
#   "geometry": {
#     "width": 200,
#     "height": 276,
#     "x": 0,
#     "y": 0
#   },
#   "resolution": {
#     "x": "300",
#     "y": "300"
#   },
#   "colorspace": "sRGB",
#   "channelDepth": {
#     "red": 8,
#     "green": 8,
#     "blue": 8
#   },
#   "quality": 92,
#   "properties": {
#     "date:create": "2016-07-11T19:17:53+08:00",
#     "date:modify": "2016-07-11T19:17:53+08:00",
#     "exif:ColorSpace": "1",
#     "exif:ExifImageLength": "276",
#     "exif:ExifImageWidth": "200",
#     "exif:ExifOffset": "90",
#     "exif:Orientation": "1",
#     "exif:ResolutionUnit": "2",
#     "exif:XResolution": "300/1",
#     "exif:YResolution": "300/1",
#     "icc:copyright": "Copyright (c) 1998 Hewlett-Packard Company",
#     "icc:description": "sRGB IEC61966-2.1",
#     "icc:manufacturer": "IEC http://www.iec.ch",
#     "icc:model": "IEC 61966-2.1 Default RGB colour space - sRGB",
#     "jpeg:colorspace": "2",
#     "jpeg:sampling-factor": "1x1,1x1,1x1",
#     "signature": "1b2336f023e5be4a9f357848df9803527afacd4987ecc18c4295a272403e52c1"
#   },
#   ...
# }

Note that MiniMagick::Image#data is supported only on ImageMagick 6.8.8-3 or above, for GraphicsMagick or older versions of ImageMagick use MiniMagick::Image#details.

With MiniMagick you can retrieve a matrix of image pixels, where each member of the matrix is a 3-element array of numbers between 0-255, one for each range of the RGB color channels.

image = MiniMagick::Image.open("image.jpg")
pixels = image.get_pixels
pixels[3][2][1] # the green channel value from the 4th-row, 3rd-column pixel

It can also be called after applying transformations:

image = MiniMagick::Image.open("image.jpg")
image.crop "20x30+10+5"
image.colorspace "Gray"
pixels = image.get_pixels

Sometimes when you have pixels and want to create image from pixels, you can do this to form an image:

image = MiniMagick::Image.open('/Users/rabin/input.jpg')
pixels = image.get_pixels
depth = 8
dimension = [image.width, image.height]
map = 'rgb'
image = MiniMagick::Image.get_image_from_pixels(pixels, dimension, map, depth ,'jpg')
image.write('/Users/rabin/output.jpg')

In this example, the returned pixels should now have equal R, G, and B values.

MiniMagick.configure do |config|
  config.cli = :graphicsmagick
  config.timeout = 5
end

For a complete list of configuration options, see Configuration.

MiniMagick also allows you to composite images:

first_image  = MiniMagick::Image.new("first.jpg")
second_image = MiniMagick::Image.new("second.jpg")
result = first_image.composite(second_image) do |c|
  c.compose "Over"    # OverCompositeOp
  c.geometry "+20+20" # copy second_image onto first_image from (20, 20)
end
result.write "output.jpg"

For multilayered images you can access its layers.

gif.frames #=> [...]
pdf.pages  #=> [...]
psd.layers #=> [...]

gif.frames.each_with_index do |frame, idx|
  frame.write("frame#{idx}.jpg")
end

By default, MiniMagick validates images each time it's opening them. It validates them by running identify on them, and see if ImageMagick finds them valid. This adds slight overhead to the whole processing. Sometimes it's safe to assume that all input and output images are valid by default and turn off validation:

MiniMagick.configure do |config|
  config.validate_on_create = false
end

You can test whether an image is valid:

image.valid?
image.validate! # raises MiniMagick::Invalid if image is invalid

You can choose to log MiniMagick commands and their execution times:

MiniMagick.logger.level = Logger::DEBUG

D, [2016-03-19T07:31:36.755338 #87191] DEBUG -- : [0.01s] identify /var/folders/k7/6zx6dx6x7ys3rv3srh0nyfj00000gn/T/mini_magick20160319-87191-1ve31n1.jpg

In Rails you'll probably want to set MiniMagick.logger = Rails.logger.

Default CLI is ImageMagick, but if you want to use GraphicsMagick, you can specify it in configuration:

MiniMagick.configure do |config|
  config.cli = :graphicsmagick # or :imagemagick or :imagemagick7
end

You can also use .with_cli to temporary switch the CLI:

MiniMagick.with_cli(:graphicsmagick) do
  # Some processing that GraphicsMagick is better at
end

WARNING: If you're building a multithreaded web application, you should change the CLI only on application startup. This is because the configuration is global, so if you change it in a controller action, other threads in the same process will also have their CLI changed, which could lead to race conditions.

If you want to be close to the metal, you can use ImageMagick's command-line tools directly.

MiniMagick::Tool::Magick.new do |magick|
  magick << "input.jpg"
  magick.resize("100x100")
  magick.negate
  magick << "output.jpg"
end #=> `magick input.jpg -resize 100x100 -negate output.jpg`

# OR

convert = MiniMagick::Tool::Convert.new
convert << "input.jpg"
convert.resize("100x100")
convert.negate
convert << "output.jpg"
convert.call #=> `convert input.jpg -resize 100x100 -negate output.jpg`

If you're on ImageMagick 7, you should probably use MiniMagick::Tool::Magick, though the legacy MiniMagick::Tool::Convert and friends will work too. On ImageMagick 6 MiniMagick::Tool::Magick won't be available, so you should instead use MiniMagick::Tool::Convert and friends.

This way of using MiniMagick is highly recommended if you want to maximize performance of your image processing. We will now show the features available.

The most basic way of building a command is appending strings:

MiniMagick::Tool::Magick.new do |convert|
  convert << "input.jpg"
  convert.merge! ["-resize", "500x500", "-negate"]
  convert << "output.jpg"
end

Note that it is important that every command you would pass to the command line has to be separated with <<, e.g.:

# GOOD
convert << "-resize" << "500x500"

# BAD
convert << "-resize 500x500"

Shell escaping is also handled for you. If an option has a value that has spaces inside it, just pass it as a regular string.

convert << "-distort"
convert << "Perspective"
convert << "0,0,0,0 0,45,0,45 69,0,60,10 69,45,60,35"

convert -distort Perspective '0,0,0,0 0,45,0,45 69,0,60,10 69,45,60,35'

Instead of passing in options directly, you can use Ruby methods:

convert.resize("500x500")
convert.rotate(90)
convert.distort("Perspective", "0,0,0,0 0,45,0,45 69,0,60,10 69,45,60,35")

MiniMagick knows which options each tool has, so you will get an explicit NoMethodError if you happen to have misspelled an option.

Every method call returns self, so you can chain them to create logical groups.

MiniMagick::Tool::Magick.new do |convert|
  convert << "input.jpg"
  convert.clone(0).background('gray').shadow('80x5+5+5')
  convert.negate
  convert << "output.jpg"
end

MiniMagick::Tool::Magick.new do |convert|
  convert << "input.jpg"
  convert.repage.+
  convert.distort.+("Perspective", "more args")
end

convert input.jpg +repage +distort Perspective 'more args'

MiniMagick::Tool::Magick.new do |convert|
  convert << "wand.gif"

  convert.stack do |stack|
    stack << "wand.gif"
    stack.rotate(30)
    stack.foo("bar", "baz")
  end
  # or
  convert.stack("wand.gif", { rotate: 30, foo: ["bar", "baz"] })

  convert << "images.gif"
end

convert wand.gif \( wand.gif -rotate 90 -foo bar baz \) images.gif

If you want to pass something to standard input, you can pass the :stdin option to #call:

identify = MiniMagick::Tool::Identify.new
identify.stdin # alias for "-"
identify.call(stdin: image_content)

MiniMagick also has #stdout alias for "-" for outputting file contents to standard output:

content = MiniMagick::Tool::Magick.new do |convert|
  convert << "input.jpg"
  convert.auto_orient
  convert.stdout # alias for "-"
end

Some MiniMagick tools such as compare output the result of the command on standard error, even if the command succeeded. The result of MiniMagick::Tool#call is always the standard output, but if you pass it a block, it will yield the stdout, stderr and exit status of the command:

compare = MiniMagick::Tool::Compare.new
# build the command
compare.call do |stdout, stderr, status|
  # ...
end

ImageMagick supports a number of environment variables for controlling its resource limits. For example, you can enforce memory or execution time limits by setting the following variables in your application's process environment:

• MAGICK_MEMORY_LIMIT=128MiB
• MAGICK_MAP_LIMIT=64MiB
• MAGICK_TIME_LIMIT=30

For a full list of variables and description, see ImageMagick's resources documentation.

ImageMagick allows you to change the temporary directory to process the image file:

MiniMagick.configure do |config|
  config.tmpdir = File.join(Dir.tmpdir, "/my/new/tmp_dir")
end

The example directory /my/new/tmp_dir must exist and must be writable.

If not configured, it will default to Dir.tmpdir.

This gem raises an error when ImageMagick returns a nonzero exit code. Sometimes, however, ImageMagick returns nonzero exit codes when the command actually went ok. In these cases, to avoid raising errors, you can add the following configuration:

MiniMagick.configure do |config|
  config.whiny = false
end

If you're using the tool directly, you can pass whiny: false value to the constructor:

MiniMagick::Tool::Identify.new(whiny: false) do |b|
  b.help
end

Unlike RMagick, MiniMagick is a much thinner wrapper around ImageMagick.

• To piece together MiniMagick commands refer to the Mogrify Documentation. For instance you can use the -flop option as image.flop.
• Operations on a MiniMagick image tend to happen in-place as image.trim, whereas RMagick has both copying and in-place methods like image.trim and image.trim!.
• To open files with MiniMagick you use MiniMagick::Image.open as you would Magick::Image.read. To open a file and directly edit it, use MiniMagick::Image.new.