What is the significance of activating Alpha Blending before copying an image in PHP?

Activating Alpha Blending in PHP before copying an image is important when dealing with images that have transparency or alpha channels. This allows the transparency of the image to be preserved when it is copied onto another image or background. Without activating Alpha Blending, the transparent areas of the image may appear as solid color, losing the intended transparency effect.

// Create a new image with alpha channel support
$dest = imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height);
imagesavealpha($dest, true);
imagealphablending($dest, false);

// Copy the source image onto the destination image with alpha blending
imagecopy($dest, $src, $x, $y, 0, 0, $width, $height);

// Output or save the destination image
imagepng($dest, 'output.png');

// Free up memory
imagedestroy($dest);
imagedestroy($src);