Specify those image color channels to which subsequent operators are limited. Choose from: Red , Green , Blue , Alpha , Gray , Cyan , Magenta , Yellow , Black , Opacity , Index , RGB , RGBA , CMYK , or CMYKA. The channels above can also be specified as a comma-separated list or can be abbreviated as a concatenation of the letters ' R ', ' G ', ' B ', ' A ', ' O ', ' C ', ' M ', ' Y ', ' K '.

The numerals 0 to 31 may also be used to specify channels, where 0 to 5 are: ' 0 ' equals Red or Cyan ' 1 ' equals Green or Magenta ' 2 ' equals Blue or Yellow ' 3 ' equals Black ' 4 ' equals Alpha or Opacity ' 5 ' equals Index. For example, to only select the Red and Blue channels you can use any of the following:. All the channels that are present in an image can be specified using the special channel type All. Not all operators are 'channel capable', but generally any operators that are generally 'grey-scale' image operators, will understand this setting.

See individual operator documentation. On top of the normal channel selection an extra flag can be specified, ' Sync '. This is turned on by default and if set means that operators that understand this flag should perform: cross-channel synchronization of the channels.

If not specified, then most grey-scale operators will apply their image processing operations to each individual channel as specified by the rest of the -channel setting completely independently from each other. For example for operators such as -auto-level and -auto-gamma the color channels are modified together in exactly the same way so that colors will remain in-sync.

Without it being set, then each channel is modified separately and independently, which may produce color distortion.

The -morphology ' Convolve ' method and the -compose mathematical methods, also understands the ' Sync ' flag to modify the behavior of pixel colors according to the alpha channel if present. That is to say it will modify the image processing with the understanding that fully-transparent colors should not contribute to the final result. Basically, by default, operators work with color channels in synchronous, and treats transparency as special, unless the -channel setting is modified so as to remove the effect of the ' Sync ' flag.

How each operator does this depends on that operators current implementation. Not all operators understands this flag at this time, but that is changing. By default, ImageMagick sets -channel to the value ' RGBK,sync ', which specifies that operators act on all color channels except the transparency channel, and that all the color channels are to be modified in exactly the same way, with an understanding of transparency depending on the operation being applied.

Options that are affected by the -channel setting include the following. These operators have yet to be made to understand the newer 'Sync' flag. For example -threshold will by default grayscale the image before thresholding, if no -channel setting has been defined.

This is not 'Sync flag controlled, yet. Also some operators such as -blur , -gaussian-blur , will modify their handling of the color channels if the ' alpha ' channel is also enabled by -channel. Generally this done to ensure that fully-transparent colors are treated as being fully-transparent, and thus any underlying 'hidden' color has no effect on the final results. Typically resulting in 'halo' effects. The newer -morphology convolution equivalents however does have a understanding of the 'Sync' flag and will thus handle transparency correctly by default.

As an alpha channel is optional within images, some operators will read the color channels of an image as a greyscale alpha mask, when the image has no alpha channel present, and the -channel setting tells the operator to apply the operation using alpha channels. The -clut operator is a good example of this.

The expression consists of one or more channels, either mnemonic or numeric e. red or 0, green or 1, etc. For example, to create 3 grayscale images from the red, green, and blue channels of an image, use:. Here we take an sRGB image and a grayscale image and inject the grayscale image into the alpha channel:. Add -debug pixel prior to the -channel-fx option to track the channel morphology. The width and height given in the of the size portion of the geometry argument give the number of columns and rows to remove.

The offset portion of the geometry argument is influenced by a -gravity setting, if present. The -chop option removes entire rows and columns, and moves the remaining corner blocks leftward and upward to close the gaps. While it can remove internal rows and columns of pixels, it is more typically used with as -gravity setting and zero offsets so as to remove a single edge from an image. Compare this to -shave which removes equal numbers of pixels from opposite sides of the image.

Using -chop effectively undoes the results of a -splice that was given the same geometry and -gravity settings.

The image is divided into tiles of width and height pixels. The tile size should be larger than the size of features to be preserved and respects the aspect ratio of the image. to force an exact tile width and height. number-bins is the number of histogram bins per tile min 2, max The number of histogram bins should be smaller than the number of pixels in a single tile.

clip-limit is the contrast limit for localized changes in contrast. A clip-limit of 2 to 3 is a good starting place e. Very large values will let the histogram equalization do whatever it wants to do, that is result in maximal local contrast. The value 1 will result in the original image. Note, if the number of bins and the clip-limit are ommitted, they default to and no clipping respectively.

Set each pixel whose value is below zero to zero and any the pixel whose value is above the quantum range to the quantum range e. The -clip feature requires SVG support.

If the SVG delegate library is not present, the option is ignored. Use the alpha channel of the current image as a mask. Any areas that is white is not modified by any of the 'image processing operators' that follow, until the mask is removed. Pixels in the black areas of the clip mask are modified per the requirements of the operator. In some ways this is similar to though not the same as defining a rectangular -region , or using the negative of the mask third image in a three image -composite , operation.

This is identical to -clip except choose a specific clip path in the event the image has more than one path available. ImageMagick supports UTF-8 encoding. Inside parenthesis where the operator is normally used it will make a clone of the images from the last 'pushed' image sequence, and adds them to the end of the current image sequence. Outside parenthesis not recommended it clones the images from the current image sequence.

Specify the image by its index in the sequence. The first image is index 0. Specify a range of images with a dash e. Separate multiple indexes with commas but no spaces e. Replace the channel values in the first image using each corresponding channel in the second image as a c olor l ook u p t able.

The second LUT image is ordinarily a gradient image containing the histogram mapping of how each channel should be modified. Typically it is a either a single row or column image of replacement color values. If larger than a single row or column, values are taken from a diagonal line from top-left to bottom-right corners. The lookup is further controlled by the -interpolate setting, which is especially handy for an LUT which is not the full length needed by the ImageMagick installed Quality Q level.

Good settings for this are ' bilinear ' and ' catrom '. Catom can return a useful second-order continuity. This operator is especially suited to replacing a grayscale image with a specific color gradient from the CLUT image. Only the channel values defined by the -channel setting will have their values replaced.

If either the image being modified, or the lookup image, contains no transparency i. That is you can use a grayscale CLUT image to adjust a existing images alpha channel, or you can color a grayscale image using colors form CLUT containing the desired colors, including transparency.

See also -hald-clut which replaces colors according to the lookup of the full color RGB value from a 2D representation of a 3D color cube. Fully define the look of each frame of an GIF animation sequence, to form a 'film strip' animation. Overlay each image in an image sequence according to its -dispose meta-data, to reproduce the look of an animation at each point in the animation sequence.

All images should be the same size, and are assigned appropriate GIF disposal settings for the animation to continue working as expected as a GIF animation. Such frames are more easily viewed and processed than the highly optimized GIF overlay images.

The animation can be re-optimized after processing using the -layers method ' optimize ', although there is no guarantee that the restored GIF animation optimization is better than the original.

Colorize the image by an amount specified by value using the color specified by the most recent -fill setting. Specify the amount of colorization as a percentage. Separate colorization values can be applied to the red, green, and blue channels of the image with a comma-delimited list of colorization values e. This option only applies when the default X server visual is PseudoColor or GrayScale. Refer to -visual for more details. By default, a shared colormap is allocated. The image shares colors with other X clients.

Some image colors could be approximated, therefore your image may look very different than intended. If private is chosen, the image colors appear exactly as they are defined. However, other clients may go technicolor when the image colormap is installed.

The actual number of colors in the image may be less than your request, but never more. Note that this a color reduction option. Images with fewer unique colors than specified by value will have any duplicate or unused colors removed. The ordering of an existing color palette may be altered. When converting an image from color to grayscale, it is more efficient to convert the image to the gray colorspace before reducing the number of colors. Refer to the color reduction algorithm for more details.

This option permits saturation changes, hue rotation, luminance to alpha, and various other effects. Although variable-sized transformation matrices can be used, typically one uses a 5x5 matrix for an RGBA image and a 6x6 for CMYKA or RGBA with offsets. The matrix is similar to those used by Adobe Flash except offsets are in column 6 rather than 5 in support of CMYKA images and offsets are normalized divide Flash offset by For a more accurate color conversion to or from the linear RGB, CMYK, or grayscale colorspaces, use the -profile option.

Note, ImageMagick assumes the sRGB colorspace if the image format does not indicate otherwise. For colorspace conversion, the gamma function is first removed to produce linear RGB.

Return a binary image where all colors within the specified range are changed to white. All other colors are changed to black. The channels previously set by -channel of the combined image are taken from the grayscale values of each image in the sequence, in order.

For the default -channel setting of RGB , this means the first image is assigned to the Red channel, the second to the Green channel, the third to the Blue. This option can be thought of as the inverse to -separate , so long as the channel settings are the same. Thus, in the following example, the final image should be a copy of the original. This option sets the comment meta-data of an image read in after this option has been given.

To modify a comment of images already in memory use " -set comment ". The comment can contain special format characters listed in the Format and Print Image Properties. These attributes are expanded when the comment is finally assigned to the individual images. If the first character of string is , the image comment is read from a file titled by the remaining characters in the string.

Comment meta-data are not visible on the image itself. produces an image comment of MIFF:bird. Mathematically and visually annotate the difference between an image and its reconstruction. This is a convert version of " compare " for two same sized images. The syntax is as follows, but other metrics are allowed. See Alpha Compositing for a detailed discussion of alpha compositing. This setting affects image processing operators that merge two or more images together in some way. This includes the operators, -compare , -composite , -layers composite, -flatten , -mosaic , -layers merge, -border , -frame , and -extent.

Take the first image 'destination' and overlay the second 'source' image according to the current -compose setting. The location of the 'source' or 'overlay' image is controlled according to -gravity , and -geometry settings. If a third image is given this is treated as a grayscale blending 'mask' image relative to the first 'destination' image.

This mask is blended with the source image. However for the ' displace ' compose method, the mask is used to provide a separate Y-displacement image instead. If a -compose method requires extra numerical arguments or flags these can be provided by setting the -set ' option:compose:args ' appropriately for the compose method.

Some -compose methods can modify the 'destination' image outside the overlay area. It is disabled by default.

The SVG compositing specification requires that color and opacity values range between zero and QuantumRange inclusive.

Use pixel compression specified by type when writing the image. Choices are: None , BZip , Fax , Group4 , JPEG , JPEG , Lossless , LZW , RLE or Zip. The default is the compression type of the specified image file. If LZW compression is specified but LZW compression has not been enabled, the image data is written in an uncompressed LZW format that can be read by LZW decoders.

This may result in larger-than-expected GIF files. Lossless refers to lossless JPEG, which is only available if the JPEG library has been patched to support it. Use of lossless JPEG is generally not recommended. When writing an ICO file, you may request that the images be encoded in PNG format, by specifying Zip compression. When writing a JNG file, specify Zip compression to request that the alpha channel be encoded in PNG "IDAT" format, or JPEG to request that it be encoded in JPG "JDAA" format.

Use the -quality option to set the compression level to be used by JPEG, PNG, MIFF, and MPEG encoders. Use the -sampling-factor option to set the sampling factor to be used by JPEG, MPEG, and YUV encoders for down-sampling the chroma channels. connected-components labeling detects connected regions in an image, choose from 4 or 8 way connectivity. This option enhances the intensity differences between the lighter and darker elements of the image.

Increase the contrast in an image by stretching the range of intensity values. While performing the stretch, black-out at most black-point pixels and white-out at most white-point pixels.

Prior to ImageMagick 6. Note that -contrast-stretch 0 will modify the image such that the image's min and max values are stretched to 0 and QuantumRange , respectively, without any loss of data due to burn-out or clipping at either end. This is not the same as -normalize , which is equivalent to -contrast-stretch 0. Internally operator works by creating a histogram bin, and then uses that bin to modify the image.

As such some colors may be merged together when they originally fell into the same 'bin'. Specifying any other -channel setting will normalize the RGB channels independently. See also -auto-level for a 'perfect' normalization of mathematical images. The kernel is a matrix specified as a comma-separated list of integers with no spaces , ordered left-to right, starting with the top row.

Note that the -convolve operator supports the -bias setting. This option shifts the convolution so that positive and negative results are relative to a user-specified bias value. Without an output bias, the negative values is clipped at zero.

The width and height of the geometry argument give the size of the image that remains after cropping, and x and y in the offset if present gives the location of the top left corner of the cropped image with respect to the original image. To specify the amount to be removed, use -shave instead. If the x and y offsets are present, a single image is generated, consisting of the pixels from the cropping region.

The offsets specify the location of the upper left corner of the cropping region measured downward and rightward with respect to the upper left corner of the image.

If the -gravity option is present with NorthEast , East , or SouthEast gravity, it gives the distance leftward from the right edge of the image to the right edge of the cropping region. Similarly, if the -gravity option is present with SouthWest , South , or SouthEast gravity, the distance is measured upward between the bottom edges.

If the x and y offsets are omitted, a set of tiles of the specified geometry, covering the entire input image, is generated. The rightmost tiles and the bottom tiles are smaller if the specified geometry extends beyond the dimensions of the input image.

You can add the to the geometry argument to equally divide the image into the number of tiles generated. By adding a exclamation character flag to the geometry argument, the cropped images virtual canvas page size and offset is set as if the geometry argument was a viewport or window.

This means the canvas page size is set to exactly the same size you specified, the image offset set relative top left corner of the region cropped. If the cropped image 'missed' the actual image on its virtual canvas, a special single pixel transparent 'missed' image is returned, and a 'crop missed' warning given.

This is especially true when you are going to write to an image format such as PNG that supports an image offset. The events parameter specifies which events are to be logged. It can be either None , All , Trace , or a comma-separated list consisting of one or more of the following domains: Accelerate , Annotate , Blob , Cache , Coder , Configure , Deprecate , Exception , Locale , Render , Resource , Security , TemporaryFile , Transform , X11 , or User.

The User domain is normally empty, but developers can log user events in their private copy of ImageMagick. Decipher and restore pixels that were previously transformed by -encipher. For more information, see the webpage, ImageMagick: Encipher or Decipher an Image.

Given a sequence of images all the same size, such as produced by -coalesce , replace the second and later images, with a smaller image of just the area that changed relative to the previous image. The resulting sequence of images can be used to optimize an animation sequence, though will not work correctly for GIF animations when parts of the animation can go from opaque to transparent.

This option is actually equivalent to the -layers method ' compare-any '. Add specific global settings generally used to control coders and image processing operations. This option creates one or more definitions for coders and decoders to use while reading and writing image data.

Definitions are generally used to control image file format coder modules, and image processing operations, beyond what is provided by normal means.

Defined settings are listed in -verbose information " info: " output format as "Artifacts". If value is missing for a definition, an empty-valued definition of a flag is created with that name. The same 'artifact' settings can also be defined using the -set "option: key " " value " option, which also allows the use of Format and Print Image Properties in the defined value.

The option and key are case-independent they are converted to lowercase for use within the decoders while the value is case-dependent.

See ImageMagick Defines for a list of recognized defines. For example:. Set attributes of the image registry by prefixing the value with registry:.

For example, to set a temporary path to put work files, use:. The default is no delay between each showing of the image sequence.

The default ticks-per-second is However, if the image delay is 40 or 50, the delay it is changed to Negative indexes are relative to the end of the sequence, for example, -1 represents the last image of the sequence. Separate indexes with a comma e. Use -delete to delete the entire image sequence. You can also delete images from the persistent registry, e.

Set the horizontal and vertical resolution of an image for rendering to devices. This option specifies the image resolution to store while encoding a raster image or the canvas resolution while rendering reading vector formats such as Postscript, PDF, WMF, and SVG into a raster image. Image resolution provides the unit of measure to apply when rendering to an output device or raster image. The default unit of measure is in dots per inch DPI.

The -units option may be used to select dots per centimeter instead. The default resolution is 72 dots per inch, which is equivalent to one point per pixel Macintosh and Postscript standard. Computer screens are normally 72 or 96 dots per inch, while printers typically support , , , or dots per inch. To determine the resolution of your display, use a ruler to measure the width of your screen in inches, and divide by the number of horizontal pixels on a x display.

If the file format supports it, this option may be used to update the stored image resolution. Note that Photoshop stores and obtains image resolution from a proprietary embedded profile. If this profile is not stripped from the image, then Photoshop will continue to treat the image using its former resolution, ignoring the image resolution specified in the standard file header. The -density option sets an attribute and does not alter the underlying raster image.

It may be used to adjust the rendered size for desktop publishing purposes by adjusting the scale applied to the pixels. To resize the image so that it is the same size at a different resolution, use the -resample option. Color depth is the number of bits per channel for each pixel.

Use this option to specify the depth of raw images formats whose depth is unknown such as GRAY, RGB, or CMYK, or to change the depth of any image after it has been read. Use -set option:deskew:auto-crop true false to auto crop the image.

Render text right-to-left or left-to-right. Requires the RAQM delegate library and complex text layout. With this option, the 'overlay' image, and optionally the 'mask' image, is used as a displacement map, which is used to displace the lookup of what part of the 'background' image is seen at each point of the overlaid area.

Much like the displacement map is a 'lens' that redirects light shining through it so as to present a distorted view the original 'background' image behind it.

Any perfect grey areas of the displacement map produce a zero displacement of the image. Black areas produce the given maximum negative displacement of the lookup point, while white produce a maximum positive displacement of the lookup. Note that it is the lookup of the 'background' that is displaced, not a displacement of the image itself. Understanding this is a very important in understanding how displacement maps work. The given arguments define the maximum amount of displacement in pixels that a particular map can produce.

If the displacement scale is large enough it is also possible to lookup parts of the 'background' image that lie well outside the bounds of the displacement map itself. That is you could very easily copy a section of the original image from outside the overlay area into the overlay area.

Using '! these flags were added as of IM v6. Normally a single grayscale displacement map is provided, which with the given scaling values will determine a single direction vector in which displacements can occur positively or negatively.

However, if you also specify a third image which is normally used as a mask , the composite image is used for horizontal X displacement, while the mask image is used for vertical Y displacement. This allows you to define completely different displacement values for the X and Y directions, and allowing you to lookup any point within the scale bounds.

In other words each pixel can lookup any other nearby pixel, producing complex 2 dimensional displacements, rather than a simple 1 dimensional vector displacements. Alternatively rather than supplying two separate images, as of IM v6.

As of IM v6. However areas outside the overlaid areas will not be affected. This option is used with convert for obtaining image or font from this X server. See X 1. Define the GIF disposal image setting for images that are being created or read in. The layer disposal method defines the way each the displayed image is to be modified after the current 'frame' of an animation has finished being displayed after its 'delay' period , but before the next frame on an animation is to be overlaid onto the display.

You can also use the numbers given above, which is what the GIF format uses internally to represent the above settings. Use -set ' dispose ' method to set the image disposal method for images already in memory. The opacity of the composite image is multiplied by the given percent, then it is composited 'over' the main image. If both percentages are given, each image are dissolved to the percentages given. Distort an image, using the given method and its required arguments.

The arguments is a single string containing a list of floating point numbers separated by commas or spaces. The number of and meaning of the floating point values depends on the distortion method being used. Many of the above distortion methods such as ' Affine ', ' Perspective ', and ' Shepards ' use a list control points defining how these points in the given image should be distorted in the destination image.

Each set of four floating point values represent a source image coordinate, followed immediately by the destination image coordinate. This produces a list of values such as For example, to warp an image using ' perspective ' distortion, needs a list of at least 4 sets of coordinates, or 16 numbers. Here is the perspective distortion of the built-in "rose:" image.

Note how spaces were used to group the 4 sets of coordinate pairs, to make it easier to read and understand. If more that the required number of coordinate pairs are given for a distortion, the distortion method is 'least squares' fitted to produce the best result for all the coordinate pairs given.

If less than the ideal number of points are given, the distort will generally fall back to a simpler form of distortion that can handles the smaller number of coordinates usually a linear ' Affine ' distortion. By using more coordinates you can make use of image registration tool to find matching coordinate pairs in overlapping images, so as to improve the 'fit' of the distortion. Of course a bad coordinate pair can also make the 'fit' worse. Caution is always advised.

Colors are acquired from the source image according to a cylindrical resampling -filter , using a special technique known as EWA resampling. This produces very high quality results, especially when images become smaller minified in the output, which is very common when using ' perspective ' distortion. For example here we view a infinitely tiled 'plane' all the way to the horizon. Note that a infinitely tiled perspective images involving the horizon can be very slow, because of the number of pixels that are compressed to generate each individual pixel close to the 'horizon'.

You can turn off EWA resampling, by specifying the special -filter setting of ' point ' recommended if you plan to use super-sampling instead. If an image generates invalid pixels , such as the 'sky' in the last example, -distort will use the current -mattecolor setting for these pixels. If you do not what these pixels to be visible, set the color to match the rest of the ground. The output image size will by default be the same as the input image. This means that if the part of the distorted image falls outside the viewed area of the 'distorted space', those parts is clipped and lost.

Setting -verbose setting, will cause -distort to attempt to output the internal coefficients, and the -fx equivalent to the distortion, for expert study, and debugging purposes. This many not be available for all distorts. This can be used either for 'super-sampling' the image for a higher quality result, or for panning and zooming around the image with appropriate viewport changes, or post-distort cropping and resizing. Note this table uses a squared radius lookup value.

This is typically only used for debugging EWA resampling. Apply a Riemersma or Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion dither to images when general color reduction is applied via an option, or automagically when saving to specific formats. This enabled by default. Dithering places two or more colors in neighboring pixels so that to the eye a closer approximation of the images original color is reproduced.

This reduces the number of colors needed to reproduce the image but at the cost of a lower level pattern of colors. Error diffusion dithers can use any set of colors generated or user defined to an image. This will also render PostScript without text or graphic aliasing. Disabling dithering often but not always leads to faster process, a smaller number of colors, but more cartoon like image coloring.

Generally resulting in 'color banding' effects in areas with color gradients. The color reduction operators -colors , -monochrome , -remap , and -posterize , apply dithering to images using the reduced color set they created. These operators are also used as part of automatic color reduction when saving images to formats with limited color support, such as GIF: , XBM: , and others, so dithering may also be used in these cases.

Alternatively you can use -random-threshold to generate purely random dither. Or use -ordered-dither to apply threshold mapped dither patterns, using uniform color maps, rather than specific color maps. Use this option to annotate or decorate an image with one or more graphic primitives.

The primitives include shapes, text, transformations, and pixel operations. The text gravity primitive only affects the placement of text and does not interact with the other primitives. It is equivalent to using the -gravity command-line option, except that it is limited in scope to the -draw option in which it appears.

The shape primitives are drawn in the color specified by the preceding -fill setting. For unfilled shapes, use -fill none.

You can optionally control the stroke the "outline" of a shape with the -stroke and -strokewidth settings. A point primitive is specified by a single point in the pixel plane, that is, by an ordered pair of integer coordinates, x , y. As it involves only a single pixel, a point primitive is not affected by -stroke or -strokewidth. A rectangle primitive is specified by the pair of points at the upper left and lower right corners.

A roundRectangle primitive takes the same corner points as a rectangle followed by the width and height of the rounded corners to be removed. The circle primitive makes a disk filled or circle unfilled. Give the center and any point on the perimeter boundary. Note, by using a translation, you can remove the need to calculate the circles edge coordinate, but can just give the radius directly:.

The arc primitive is used to inscribe an elliptical segment in to a given rectangle. An arc requires the two corners used for rectangle see above followed by the start and end angles of the arc of the segment e.

The start and end points produced are then joined with a line segment and the resulting segment of an ellipse is filled.

Use ellipse to draw a partial or whole ellipse. Give the center point, the horizontal and vertical "radii" the semi-axes of the ellipse and start and end angles in degrees e. The polyline and polygon primitives require three or more points to define their perimeters. A polyline is simply a polygon in which the final point is not stroked to the start point. When unfilled, this is a polygonal line. If the -stroke setting is none the default , then a polyline is identical to a polygon.

The Bezier primitive creates a spline curve and requires three or points to define its shape. The first and last points are the knots and these points are attained by the curve, while any intermediate coordinates are control points. If two control points are specified, the line between each end knot and its sequentially respective control point determines the tangent direction of the curve at that end.

If one control point is specified, the lines from the end knots to the one control point determines the tangent directions of the curve at each end.

If more than two control points are specified, then the additional control points act in combination to determine the intermediate shape of the curve. In order to draw complex curves, it is highly recommended either to use the path primitive or to draw multiple four-point bezier segments with the start and end knots of each successive segment repeated. A path represents an outline of an object, defined in terms of moveto set a new current point , lineto draw a straight line , curveto draw a Bezier curve , arc elliptical or circular arc and closepath close the current shape by drawing a line to the last moveto elements.

Compound paths i. See Paths. Use image to composite an image with another image. Follow the image keyword with the composite operator, image location, image size, and filename:. You can use 0,0 for the image size, which means to use the actual dimensions found in the image header. Otherwise, it is scaled to the given dimensions. See Alpha Compositing for a detailed discussion of alpha composition methods that are available.

The "special augmented compose operators" such as "dissolve" that require arguments cannot be used at present with the -draw image option. Use text to annotate an image with text. Follow the text coordinates with a string. If the string has embedded spaces, enclose it in single or double quotes. For example, the following annotates the image with Works like magick! for an image titled bird. See the -annotate option for another convenient way to annotate an image with text.

The rotate primitive rotates subsequent shape primitives and text primitives about the origin of the main image:. The skewX and skewY primitives skew them with respect to the origin of the main image or the region.

The transformations modify the current affine matrix, which is initialized from the initial affine matrix defined by the -affine option.

Transformations are cumulative within the -draw option. The initial affine matrix is not affected; that matrix is only changed by the appearance of another -affine option. If another -draw option appears, the current affine matrix is reinitialized from the initial affine matrix.

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On the other hand, some companies may charge you a small fee while withdrawing money. If you want to use most of the profit you have earned, always choose a platform that has high payouts. Thus, always check out the payout limit before signing up for the platform. Besides choosing companies offering high payouts, you can also choose brokers who offer rewards or bonuses but have a low payout.

Other platforms may ask you to wait for a couple of days before the withdrawal. So, choose the company depending upon how much you are willing to wait. These apps can be accessed from your smartphone or tablet and will let you monitor the trades in real-time. Further, using apps might be easier for inexperienced traders. Binary option trading suits all inexperienced traders, as they have to choose between only two options — yes or no.

To get the most out of each trade, beginners must choose a platform that has sufficient educational content or tutorials to guide them. The platform must have a simple interface, easy controls, and also the provision of a free demo account to try out various features. In general, binary options trading is safer than many other high-risk investments. Even though every trade investment is a little bit of risk, binary options are worth a shot. Just ensure that you are using a safe and properly regulated platform for your trades.

The copy trading functionality offered by many platforms allows you to follow experienced investors. These signals have been prepared after a thorough technical analysis and market evaluation. Seasoned investors may not require these trading signals, but they will be extremely beneficial for beginners.

However, with practice, reading tutorials, and using free demo accounts, you will be on your way to rule the binary trading market. Username or Email Address. Remember Me. Team November 20, Share this Article. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link.

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Fraudulent and unlicensed operators exploited binary options as a new exotic derivative. These firms are thankfully disappearing as regulators have finally begun to act, but traders still need to look for regulated brokers. Here are some shortcuts to pages that can help you determine which broker is right for you:.

The number and diversity of assets you can trade varies from broker to broker. Commodities including gold, silver, oil are also generally offered.

Individual stocks and equities are also tradable through many binary brokers. Not every stock will be available though, but generally you can choose from about 25 to popular stocks, such as Google and Apple. The asset lists are always listed clearly on every trading platform, and most brokers make their full asset lists available on their website. Trading cryptocurrency via binary trades is also booming.

The volatile nature of cryptos makes them a popular binary asset. Bitcoin and Ethereum remain the most traded, but you can find brokers that list 50 or more alt coins. The expiry time is the point at which a trade is closed and settled.

The expiry for any given trade can range from 30 seconds, up to a year. While binaries initially started with very short expiries, demand has ensured there is now a broad range of expiry times available.

Some brokers even give traders the flexibility to set their own specific expiry time. While slow to react to binary options initially, regulators around the world are now starting to regulate the industry and make their presence felt.

The major regulators currently include:. There are also regulators operating in Malta, Japan and the Isle of Man. Many other authorities are now taking a keen a interest in binaries specifically, notably in Europe where domestic regulators are keen to bolster the CySec regulation. Unregulated brokers still operate, and while some are trustworthy, a lack of regulation is a clear warning sign for potential new customers. Recently, ESMA European Securities and Markets Authority moved to ban the sale and marketing of binary options in the EU.

The ban however, only applies to brokers regulated in the EU. This leaves traders two choices to keep trading: Firstly, they can trade with an unregulated firm — this is extremely high risk and not advisable. Some unregulated firms are responsible and honest, but many are not. The second choice is to use a firm regulated by bodies outside of the EU. ASIC in Australia are a strong regulator — but they will not be implementing a ban. This means ASIC regulated firms can still accept EU traders.

See our broker lists for regulated or trusted brokers in your region. There is also a third option. A professional trader can continue trading at EU regulated brokers such as IQ Option. To be classed as professional, an account holder must meet two of these three criteria:.

We have a lot of detailed guides and strategy articles for both general education and specialized trading techniques. Below are a few to get you started if you want to learn the basic before you start trading. From Martingale to Rainbow, you can find plenty more on the strategy page.

For further reading on signals and reviews of different services go to the signals page. If you are totally new to the trading scene then watch this great video by Professor Shiller of Yale University who introduces the main ideas of options:.

The ability to trade the different types of binary options can be achieved by understanding certain concepts such as strike price or price barrier, settlement, and expiration date.

All trades have dates at which they expire. In addition, the price targets are key levels that the trader sets as benchmarks to determine outcomes.

We will see the application of price targets when we explain the different types. Expiry times can be as low as 5 minutes. How does it work? First, the trader sets two price targets to form a price range. The best way to use the tunnel binaries is to use the pivot points of the asset. If you are familiar with pivot points in forex, then you should be able to trade this type.

This type is predicated on the price action touching a price barrier or not. If the price action does not touch the price target the strike price before expiry, the trade will end up as a loss. Here you are betting on the price action of the underlying asset not touching the strike price before the expiration. There are variations of this type where we have the Double Touch and Double No Touch. Here the trader can set two price targets and purchase a contract that bets on the price touching both targets before expiration Double Touch or not touching both targets before expiration Double No Touch.

Normally you would only employ the Double Touch trade when there is intense market volatility and prices are expected to take out several price levels. Some brokers offer all three types, while others offer two, and there are those that offer only one variety. In addition, some brokers also put restrictions on how expiration dates are set. In order to get the best of the different types, traders are advised to shop around for brokers who will give them maximum flexibility in terms of types and expiration times that can be set.

Trading via your mobile has been made very easy as all major brokers provide fully developed mobile trading apps. Most trading platforms have been designed with mobile device users in mind. So the mobile version will be very similar, if not the same, as the full web version on the traditional websites. Brokers will cater for both iOS and Android devices, and produce versions for each. Downloads are quick, and traders can sign up via the mobile site as well. Our reviews contain more detail about each brokers mobile app, but most are fully aware that this is a growing area of trading.

Traders want to react immediately to news events and market updates, so brokers provide the tools for clients to trade wherever they are.

We have compared the best regulated binary options brokers and trading platforms and created this top list. Every broker and platform has been personally reviewed by us to help you find the best binary options platform for both beginners and experts. You can sort the list using payout maximum returns , minimum deposit, bonus offers or if the operator is regulated or not. You can also read full reviews of each broker, helping you make the best choice. Below the comparison list is some advice on how to pick the best binary options trading platform for you, as this will often come down to your personal requirements.

In order to trade binary options, you need to engage the services of a binary options broker. Here at binaryoptions. net we have provided a list with all the best comparison factors that will help you select which binary trading platform to open an account with. We have also looked at our most popular or frequently asked questions, and have noted that these are important factors when traders are comparing different brokers:. We cover as many of these comparison factors as possible in our list above, but we go into much more depth within each review.

Regulation and licensing is a key factor when judging the best broker. A regulated broker is the safest option. There are other regulators in addition to the above, and in some cases, brokers will be regulated by more than one organisation. This is becoming more common in Europe where binary options are coming under increased scrutiny. Reputable, premier brands will have regulation of some sort. Regulation is there to protect traders, to ensure their money is correctly held and to give them a path to take in the event of a dispute.

It should therefore be an important consideration when choosing a trading partner. Different kinds of binary options bonuses are used to attract new clients. Bonuses are often a deposit match, a one-off payment or risk free trade. Whatever the form of bonus, there are terms and conditions that need to be checked.

It is worth taking the time to understand those terms before signing up or clicking accept on a bonus offer.

If the terms are not to your liking then the bonus loses any attraction and that broker may not be the best choice, or at least not that specific offer. Some bonus terms tie in your initial deposit too.

Using a bonus effectively is harder than it sounds. If considering taking up one of these offers, think about whether, and how, it might affect your trading. If the bonus does not suit you, turn it down. You can get demo accounts at more than one broker, try them out and only deposit real money at the one you find best. It can also be useful to have accounts at more than one broker.

For example, payouts for two different assets might be best at different brokers. You can shop around, and use whichever account has the best payout for that asset. Demo accounts offer the best way to try out a brand, risk free. Likewise if we recommend a brand, you can try it first, before risking anything.

If you are looking to get involved with binary options for the first time, low minimum deposit requirements may be of interest. For traders mostly looking to learn, a low minimum deposit binary options broker might be best. A small initial deposit keeps risks low. Likewise, all brokers will have a minimum trade requirement or trade amount too. These can vary greatly between platforms. For some traders, this might be less of a factor in terms of finding the best broker for them, but for others it will be very important.

Practice accounts are a zero risk way of learning to trade. One element many traders use to find the best binary options trading account, is the payout percentage on offer. This is not always a simple comparison however. Payouts will change based on the underlying asset being traded, and the expiry time of the option. In addition, payouts will change as the broker manages their own risk.

So if one broker was originally the best price, things may then revert and mean that another now has the top payout. So the most an investor can do, is to check the payouts for assets, and expiry times they are most likely to make, and judge which brand offers the best terms most often. Demo accounts are good when researching payouts on specific assets and trades. Exchange traded and over the counter brokers will have different payouts — and they will not be easy to compare.

In general, exchange traded options offer superior value. Nadex are one example of an exchange. So as you can see, finding the best trading account and broker is not always easy — but it is worth noting that you are free to move between brokers whenever you like.

So even if an account turns out to be poor, it is easy to up sticks and find a new trading firm. Likewise, a trader could have multiple accounts, and open trades at the broker with the best terms for that particular trade. Naming the best binary options trading platform is not easy, simply because trading platforms and proprietary bespoke software are normally a question of personal taste.

One trader might like a simple layout, while others might need a lot of data on screen all the time. However, binary trading platforms do have different levels of quality, both in terms of ease of use, and features.

Broadly speaking, CFD brokers , i. e that offer CFDs Contracts For Difference in addition to binary options, typically deliver a more feature-rich trading platform or advanced software. So the likes of Nadex and IQ Option , will deliver a very professional trading platform. MetaTrader integration is also normally provided at the more professional brokers Some use both mt4 and mt5 functionality. This difference in quality is evidence of the lesser maturity of binary options as a product, but binary brands will catch up very quickly.

With OTC binaries however, there is no commission. So there is no fee or commission for the trade. Instead, each customer is essentially betting against the house. Where brokers have both sides of a trade covered, they have a handsome margin. Where they do not, the payout still gives them a level of protection. Unlike the OTC market where the platform is the counter party, with exchange traded options, the broker is the middleman — matching buyers with sellers and charging a commission.

This charge is normally hidden within the spread, rather than an explicit cost. There is far less risk involved for the broker, and therefore generally better returns per trade for the trader. Brokers can be actively compared using the spread — the tighter the spread difference between buy and sell prices the cheaper it is to trade. This increases the trade size for the trader — and profit for the platform.

They will match a seller of an asset, with a buyer of the same asset, and charge a commission for putting the deal together. The market itself will decide the prices — if there are more sellers than buyers, the price will drift down until demand rises.

If there are more buyers than those willing to sell, the option price will rise. A broker operating an exchange does not mind who wins and who loses. They take no risk on the trade themselves unless the traders are trading on credit.

The broker will make their commission on the trade regardless of the outcome. Due to this reduced risk for the broker, the returns for a winning trader are generally larger. Commissions are usually small relative to the size of the trade, meaning they do not impact the payout too much. Other benefits include the fact that stop losses can be applied, and also that trades can be closed at any time to take a profit or reduce losses.

The complications with exchanges, comes from the structure. Where 0 is the figure used where an event did not occur, and where it did. While not a complicated equation, it is slightly more complex than the straight forward over the counter option. They are the counter-party to one side of the trade. So where a trader opens a position, the broker will win or lose money, based on whether the trade wins or loses.

Only where the broker has another trader who has made the exact opposite trade, will they have assured profits. Due to this increased risk, the brokers will offer a lower payout which mitigates some of the risk they are taking. It is therefore likely to be lower than an exchange traded broker. In some cases, one side of trade might be made unavailable if liabilities get too large.

The simplicity of binary options is retained with OTC brokers. Once those features become common the gap between OTC and exchanges will get smaller. For now, traders are better off trading on an exchange — but might be advised to learn the differences via demo account.

Have you had a problem with your broker? Submit a complaint. Deposit and withdrawal options do vary at each brokerage. Each of our reviews will explain which each firm offer, but below is a list of the most common options.

If you are looking for brokers that support a specific payment method, see our page on binary options payments methods or the list below. All of the factors covered above will ultimately affect the way a trader plays the market, and therefore, their profitability. The ideal situation is to get a binary broker that offers:. You also need to choose one that suits your trading style best — only you will know what that is.

Here, we outline the top 8 brokers for options trading based on a number of factors. Your watchlists and alerts will all remain synced. Regulated brokers are also able to protect their traders in case a dispute arises. At binaryoptions. As of IM v6. Add -debug pixel prior to the -channel-fx option to track the channel morphology. We double-check all the assignments for plagiarism and send you only original essays.

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