ConFoo 2025

imagecolorallocatealpha

(PHP 4 >= 4.3.2, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

imagecolorallocatealphaAllocate a color for an image

Description

imagecolorallocatealpha(
    GdImage $image,
    int $red,
    int $green,
    int $blue,
    int $alpha
): int|false

imagecolorallocatealpha() behaves identically to imagecolorallocate() with the addition of the transparency parameter alpha.

Parameters

image

A GdImage object, returned by one of the image creation functions, such as imagecreatetruecolor().

red

Value of red component.

green

Value of green component.

blue

Value of blue component.

alpha

A value between 0 and 127. 0 indicates completely opaque while 127 indicates completely transparent.

The red, green and blue parameters are integers between 0 and 255 or hexadecimals between 0x00 and 0xFF.

Return Values

A color identifier or false if the allocation failed.

Warning

This function may return Boolean false, but may also return a non-Boolean value which evaluates to false. Please read the section on Booleans for more information. Use the === operator for testing the return value of this function.

Changelog

Version Description
8.0.0 image expects a GdImage instance now; previously, a valid gd resource was expected.

Examples

Example #1 Example of using imagecolorallocatealpha()

<?php
$size
= 300;
$image=imagecreatetruecolor($size, $size);

// something to get a white background with black border
$back = imagecolorallocate($image, 255, 255, 255);
$border = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 0, 0);
imagefilledrectangle($image, 0, 0, $size - 1, $size - 1, $back);
imagerectangle($image, 0, 0, $size - 1, $size - 1, $border);

$yellow_x = 100;
$yellow_y = 75;
$red_x = 120;
$red_y = 165;
$blue_x = 187;
$blue_y = 125;
$radius = 150;

// allocate colors with alpha values
$yellow = imagecolorallocatealpha($image, 255, 255, 0, 75);
$red = imagecolorallocatealpha($image, 255, 0, 0, 75);
$blue = imagecolorallocatealpha($image, 0, 0, 255, 75);

// drawing 3 overlapped circle
imagefilledellipse($image, $yellow_x, $yellow_y, $radius, $radius, $yellow);
imagefilledellipse($image, $red_x, $red_y, $radius, $radius, $red);
imagefilledellipse($image, $blue_x, $blue_y, $radius, $radius, $blue);

// don't forget to output a correct header!
header('Content-Type: image/png');

// and finally, output the result
imagepng($image);
imagedestroy($image);
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

Output of example : Example of using imagecolorallocatealpha()

Example #2 Convert typical alpha values for use with imagecolorallocatealpha()

Usually alpha values of 0 designate fully transparent pixels, and the alpha channel has 8 bits. To convert such alpha values to be compatible with imagecolorallocatealpha(), some simple arithmetic is sufficient:

<?php
$alpha8
= 0; // fully transparent
var_dump(127 - ($alpha8 >> 1));
$alpha8 = 255; // fully opaque
var_dump(127 - ($alpha8 >> 1));
?>

The above example will output:

int(127)
int(0)

See Also

add a note

User Contributed Notes 3 notes

up
6
eric (at) junioronline.us
18 years ago
If you only wish to extract the alpha value for a color, you can simply extract it like so:

<?php

$color
= imagecolorat($im, 50, 50);
$alpha = $color >> 24;

?>

It actually shifts off the first 24 bits (where 8x3 are used for each color), and returns the remaining 7 allocated bits (commonly used for alpha)
up
3
Brett G
9 years ago
When working with transparency, avoid imagecreate() and use imagecreatetruecolor() instead. Transparency effects may not work as expected within a palette-based image.
up
2
fjoggen at gmail dot com
17 years ago
If you need to calculate the integer representation of a color with an alpha channel, without initialising an image and using the imagecolorallocatealpha function. Then this function might be of some help:

<?php
function alphaColor($hexColor,$alpha)
{
return
bindec(decbin($alpha).decbin(hexdec($hexColor));
}

echo
alphaColor("FFFFFF",127);
?>
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