What best practices should be followed when handling image manipulation functions in PHP?

When handling image manipulation functions in PHP, it is important to validate user input to prevent malicious attacks such as code injection. Additionally, it is recommended to use the GD library functions provided by PHP for image processing tasks to ensure compatibility and security. Always sanitize input data and validate file types before processing them to avoid potential security vulnerabilities.

// Example of validating and processing image file in PHP
if(isset($_FILES['image'])){
    $file_name = $_FILES['image']['name'];
    $file_tmp = $_FILES['image']['tmp_name'];
    
    // Validate file type
    $file_ext = strtolower(pathinfo($file_name, PATHINFO_EXTENSION));
    $allowed_extensions = array('jpg', 'jpeg', 'png', 'gif');
    
    if(in_array($file_ext, $allowed_extensions)){
        // Process the image using GD library functions
        $image = imagecreatefromstring(file_get_contents($file_tmp));
        
        // Perform image manipulation tasks here
        
        // Save the manipulated image
        imagepng($image, 'manipulated_image.png');
        
        // Free up memory
        imagedestroy($image);
    } else {
        echo "Invalid file type. Only JPG, JPEG, PNG, and GIF files are allowed.";
    }
}