What are some common pitfalls when using PHP to generate images, such as not including header information?

One common pitfall when using PHP to generate images is not including the necessary header information to specify the image type. This can result in the image not displaying correctly or at all in the browser. To solve this issue, make sure to include the appropriate header information before outputting the image data.

// Set the content type header to specify the image type
header('Content-Type: image/png');

// Generate and output the image
$image = imagecreate(200, 200);
$background_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 255, 255, 255);
$text_color = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 0, 0);
imagestring($image, 5, 50, 50, 'Hello World!', $text_color);
imagepng($image);
imagedestroy($image);