What are best practices for handling image resizing and thumbnail generation in PHP to maintain consistent page layout?

When handling image resizing and thumbnail generation in PHP to maintain consistent page layout, it is important to use a library like GD or Imagick to ensure high-quality image processing. Additionally, it is recommended to set specific dimensions for thumbnails and resize images proportionally to avoid distortion. Finally, caching resized images can help improve performance and reduce server load.

// Example code snippet for resizing images and generating thumbnails in PHP using GD library

// Set the maximum dimensions for thumbnails
$maxWidth = 150;
$maxHeight = 150;

// Load the original image
$originalImage = imagecreatefromjpeg('original.jpg');

// Get the original image dimensions
$originalWidth = imagesx($originalImage);
$originalHeight = imagesy($originalImage);

// Calculate the new dimensions for resizing
if ($originalWidth > $originalHeight) {
    $newWidth = $maxWidth;
    $newHeight = $originalHeight * ($maxWidth / $originalWidth);
} else {
    $newHeight = $maxHeight;
    $newWidth = $originalWidth * ($maxHeight / $originalHeight);
}

// Create a new image with the resized dimensions
$resizedImage = imagecreatetruecolor($newWidth, $newHeight);

// Resize the original image to the new dimensions
imagecopyresampled($resizedImage, $originalImage, 0, 0, 0, 0, $newWidth, $newHeight, $originalWidth, $originalHeight);

// Output the resized image as a thumbnail
imagejpeg($resizedImage, 'thumbnail.jpg');

// Free up memory
imagedestroy($originalImage);
imagedestroy($resizedImage);