What tools or methods can be used to troubleshoot and debug issues related to image creation in PHP, particularly when unexpected characters or symbols appear in the output?

When unexpected characters or symbols appear in the output of an image created in PHP, it is likely due to encoding issues. To troubleshoot and debug this problem, you can use tools like a hex editor to inspect the image file and check for any unusual characters. Additionally, you can try converting the image to a different format or re-encoding it using functions like base64_encode() and base64_decode().

// Example code snippet to re-encode the image using base64 encoding
$image = imagecreatefromjpeg('image.jpg');
ob_start();
imagejpeg($image);
$image_data = ob_get_clean();
$base64_image = base64_encode($image_data);
echo '<img src="data:image/jpeg;base64,' . $base64_image . '" />';
imagedestroy($image);