How to Compress Images using ImageRecycle API (The PHP Script)?

ImageRecycle provides APIs to add image/pdf, compress them and download them. This makes things interesting, so basically, these days, I want to shrink images to reduce the space they take on VPS server. ImageRecycle supports optimisation of the following file extensions: JPEG/JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG, PDF.

imagerecycle

Here is the API documentation to add a new image. POST /images

Example:

  curl -X POST 
	-d 'auth={"key":"your_api_key","secret":"your_api_secret"}' 
	-d 'url=https://uploadbeta.com/share-image/2xw' 
	-d 'params={"compression_type":"lossy"}' 
	'https://api.imagerecycle.com/v1/images'

If a local file is specified instead, you have to use the following syntax:

  curl -X POST 
	-F 'auth={"key":"your_api_key","secret":"your_api_secret"}' 
	-F 'file=@local_file.jpg' 
	-F 'params={"compression_type":"lossy"}' 
	'https://api.imagerecycle.com/v1/images'

And here is the help from ImageRecycle support team. Thanks for prompt replies:

If you want to send an image stored on your server it’s not a simple POST query you need to send a POST query with the content type multipart/form-data.
With curl you can do that by using the -F option instead of the -d option.
You have also to specify with parameter is a file by using a @ before the file name.
If you want more informations it’s documented on the curl man page available online : http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html

Here is the command line you should use :

curl -X POST -F ‘auth={“key”:”your_api_key”,”secret”:”your_api_secret”}’ -F ‘file=@the_file_to_send.png’ -F ‘params={“compression_type”:”lossy”}’ ‘https://api.imagerecycle.com/v1/images’

You can use the parameters
– compression_type”:”lossy” or compression_type”:”lossless” for lossless or lossy compression
– “resize”:{“width”:100,”height”:100} to resize if needed the image, you can specify only with or height

In this case the request would be :

curl -X POST -F ‘auth={“key”:”your_api_key”,”secret”:”your_api_secret”}’ -F ‘file=@the_file_to_send.png’ -F ‘params={“compression_type”:”lossy”,”resize”:{“width”:100,”height”:100} }’ ‘https://api.imagerecycle.com/v1/images’

So, we can write a PHP Script, like following to optimise the local images (shrink the file size without touching the dimensions or images or PDF).

1. POST the local image/pdf to ImageRecycle server using POST /images API
2. Rename the local image/pdf to have a backup
3. Download the compressed file from ImageRecycle

Here is the screen shot, make sure you replace the app_key and app_seret.

imagerecycle-image-compression

And the server confirms this optimisation from [Optimisation History] panel.

imagerecycle-image-compression-history

I have a test.jpg which is optimised from 1.7M to 1.6M. It might not be a lot and if I choose other settings, it might give me more savings (such as re-size). [I will write another post on reviewing ImageRecycle and other competitors such as Imagefy.

The complete source code:

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
// Author:  https://helloacm.com
  $key = "app_key";
  $secret = "app_secret";
  
  function ImageRecycle($img, $key, $secret) {  
    $cmd = "curl -X POST -F 'auth={\"key\":\"$key\",\"secret\":\"$secret\"}' -F 'file=@$img' -F 'params={\"compression_type\":\"lossy\"}' 'https://api.imagerecycle.com/v1/images'";
    echo $cmd . "\n";    
    $rtn = json_decode(shell_exec($cmd), true);
    var_dump($rtn);
    $err = 201;
    if (isset($rtn['errCode'])) {
      $err = (integer)$rtn['errCode'];
    }
    $id = 0;
    if (isset($rtn['id'])) {
      $id = (integer)$rtn['id'];
    }
    if (($err == 201) || ($id > 0)) {
      $optimized_url = $rtn['optimized_url'];
      if (strlen($optimized_url)) {
        echo "Renaming original $img to ${img}_original \n";
        rename($img, $img."_original");
      }
      echo "Downloading $optimized_url ...\n";
      $optimized_content = file_get_contents($optimized_url);
      echo "Saving optimised to $img ...\n";
      file_put_contents($img, $optimized_content);      
    }
  }  
  
  foreach (array_slice($argv, 1) as $img) {
    if (!file_exists($img)) {
      echo $img . " not found.\n";
    } else {
      ImageRecycle($img, $key, $secret);
    }
  } 

Then, you have run a bash loop to iterate all images/PDF, which should give you instant saving.

I have managed to save over 2GB SSD space on VPS using the above script.

Join ImageRecycle and use the coupon IR-PARTNER-20 to get 20% off on first invoice, exclusive for my readers!

–EOF (The Ultimate Computing & Technology Blog) —