What are best practices for handling alpha channel and transparency in PNG images in PHP?

When working with PNG images in PHP, it is important to handle alpha channel and transparency properly to ensure the desired visual effect. One common issue is when transparent areas in PNG images appear as black instead of being truly transparent. To fix this, you can use the `imagealphablending()` and `imagesavealpha()` functions in PHP to preserve the alpha channel information.

// Load the PNG image
$image = imagecreatefrompng('image.png');

// Enable alpha blending
imagealphablending($image, true);

// Save alpha channel information
imagesavealpha($image, true);

// Output the image with proper transparency
header('Content-Type: image/png');
imagepng($image);

// Free up memory
imagedestroy($image);