Oh wise monks ..... I'll soon be diving into graphics manipulation using Perl, and the brief early homework I've done has led me to believe that two approaches worth pursuing are Image Magick and/or GD.

I think I've read about many more references to Image Magick here, and am wondering if one of the two approaches above is a hands-down winner? And maybe there are other approaches I'm not aware of to manipulate graphics with Perl.

Basically, I'm looking for comments/advice/recommendations. I feel that my Perl skills are solid (but I lack skills in other languages), this will all take place on Linux/Apache, and virtually all of the tasks will involve manipulating .gif and .jpeg images. Chores will likely be limited to creating thumbnails, cropping, rotating, and weight reduction.

My interest is in learning if there is any sort of consensus on which approach makes the most sense, and then start digging into the learning curve (and avoid perhaps a false start with an approach that really isn't the best suited to my needs). Any help you may offer will be appreciated by this graphic-challenged, and always learning scribe.

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