I'm looking into image uploads with Laravel 5.3. I really like the simplicity of being able to do the following:
$image = $request->file('avatar')->store('path');
But 99% of the time, I want to do some sort of image manipulation, so I end of having to do something like this instead:
$image = Image::make($request->file('avatar'));
$image->fit(800, 800)->save('/path/avatar-lg.jpg');
$image->fit(400, 400)->save('/path/avatar-md.jpg');
$image->fit(100, 100)->save('/path/avatar-sm.jpg');
I stumbled across URL based image manipulation and thought it looked interesting, but I've never heard of it until now.
Has anyone used this before? Is there a general preference in the community to do one over the other, and why is that?
Any additional insight would be great.
I've used it a bit - works very well. I guess you wouldn't want to use it if you know you always want to create maybe a large/mid/thumb size image up-front and you know the dimensions or you have some other particular needs. There are commercial versions that act as CDN's too - like imgix and cloudimage.
I use it. Its great. I usually make methods on the image model returning filter urls so in my blade views, I can do something like this:
$image->thumbnail()
It doesn't get much more readable than that.
Also worth reading following 6 part series by CloudFour https://cloudfour.com/thinks/responsive-images-101-definitions/
@Swaz We use URL-based image manipulation at work, but I don’t like it. It was implemented before I joined and don’t like the thought that people can just hit the URL and cause processing to happen in my architecture. Just seems a bit of an entry point for tying up processes from a nefarious user.
I much prefer generating pre-defined sizes and serving them up as appropriate.
@zachleigh Do you have any concerns with storing the original images on the server? Or do you think it's a non-issue?
Example: If a user uploads a 5MB image for their profile photo, but it will only ever be displayed at 150x150?
I understand the rendered image will be cached, but it still feels a bit off.
@martinbean That's a good point.
Edit: I was just looking at Glide, and under the Security section it looks like you can use signed URL's to prevent image-resize attacks.
@Swaz Interesting. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
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