What are the best practices for handling image sizes and scaling in PHP?

When handling image sizes and scaling in PHP, it is important to consider the impact on performance and load times. It is recommended to resize images to the appropriate dimensions before serving them to users in order to reduce file size and improve loading speed. PHP libraries such as GD or Imagick can be used to resize images efficiently.

// Example code using GD library to resize an image
$sourceFile = 'image.jpg';
$destinationFile = 'resized_image.jpg';
$targetWidth = 300;
$targetHeight = 200;

list($sourceWidth, $sourceHeight) = getimagesize($sourceFile);
$sourceImage = imagecreatefromjpeg($sourceFile);
$destinationImage = imagecreatetruecolor($targetWidth, $targetHeight);

imagecopyresampled($destinationImage, $sourceImage, 0, 0, 0, 0, $targetWidth, $targetHeight, $sourceWidth, $sourceHeight);

imagejpeg($destinationImage, $destinationFile);
imagedestroy($sourceImage);
imagedestroy($destinationImage);