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Setting up Statamic v3 on MacOS – Improving Image Quality with ImageMagick

by Jay George

Update – 29th November 2022

Imagick is a bit of a double-edged sword, and at this point, I don't think it's worth it, so proceed with caution! It _does_ seem to produce nicer images than GD, but you'll only notice this side-by-side. I've had issues with it locally but also with Ploi. Even though it's a one-tick install on Ploi, at some point, it just stopped working on some sites, and images weren't generating. I've heard Ploi's founder call it a "problem-causer" and a "nasty piece of software" 🤣. I hate to say it, but this has also been my experience.

As part of my Statamic series, this post covers installing ImageMagick locally to process images, to get superior image quality on your sites.

You may be wondering “Why would I want to do this?” By default, like most CMS’s, Statamic generates images using software called “GD” (Graphics Draw). For most cases, this will probably be an OK default, but from my experience using ImageMagick as alternative image processing software generates superior images—especially with larger, more noticeable images.

Installing ImageMagick Locally

Even if you're comfortable getting ImageMagick installed on your production server, installing locally will likely be a different process.

  1. Open yoursite/config/statamic/assets.php

  2. Search for driver and change the value to imagick

  3. Make sure you have homebrew installed. To check if you have homebrew installed, you can run brew -v. If Terminal tells you the version number, then you're good to go. Otherwise, download homebrew from https://brew.sh/

  4. Run brew install imagemagick. Check for any errors. At this point in the video, I was prompted to run a command to remove some leftover files.

  5. Run brew install pkg-config

  6. When prompted with Please provide the prefix of Imagemagick installation [autodetect] : just hit enter.

  7. Once complete try running valet restart and refreshing your site. You'll know ImageMagick is successfully installed if 1) it generates Statamic Glide images correctly, and 2) if you go to yoursite/cp/utilities/phpinfo you should a new full section with the headline imagick, with the first row of the section detailing the imagick module version

Fixing Errors

In my experience development environment things seldom “just work”—there's either something you forgot to set or some error you need to deal with. While ImageMagick usually runs smoothly you'll see in the video I ran into an error. The good news is you can usually Google search-engine your way out of an error when it comes to popular software—and luckily ImageMagick is relatively popular.

Before you start searching for fixes it may be worth clearing the cache first with:

php please glide:clear

This didn't help the error I ran into—which in this case was:

warning: mkdir(): File exists in System.php on line 294

I eventually found an article by Patrique Ouimet, which detailed a fix—thank you, Patrique! https://patriqueouimet.ca/tip/installing-php-and-pecl-extensions-on-macos

In this case, you needed to run:

pecl config-get ext_dir | pbcopy

then type:

mkdir -p

followed by pressing cmd + v to paste the value you just copied to your clipboard.

Once this command has been run, and the directory has been created, try running pecl install imagick again and maybe run php please glide:clear to be on the safe side. Finally valet restart and go back to your Utilities > PHP Info in your control panel. If everything's worked out, you should now see an Imagick section here.

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