What are the potential pitfalls to avoid when scripting text to image conversion in PHP?

One potential pitfall to avoid when scripting text to image conversion in PHP is not properly handling user input, which can lead to security vulnerabilities such as code injection. To prevent this, always sanitize and validate user input before using it to generate images.

// Sanitize and validate user input before using it in image generation
$text = isset($_POST['text']) ? htmlspecialchars($_POST['text']) : '';