Intervention/image · error · Intervention\Image\Exceptions\InvalidArgumentException

Color channel {classname} could not be found

Error message

Color channel {classname} could not be found

What it means

Font::setAlignmentHorizontal() accepts a string or an Alignment enum. Strings are converted with Alignment::from(), which is an exact, case-sensitive match against the nine enum backing values ('top', 'top-right', 'right', 'bottom-right', 'bottom', 'bottom-left', 'left', 'top-left', 'center'). Any other string — including alias forms that Alignment::create() would accept, like 'center-left' or 'top_left' — raises a ValueError that the setter rethrows as InvalidArgumentException('Invalid value for alignment'). You hit it via FontFactory::align($horizontal, $vertical) or the text API's alignment option.

Source

Thrown at src/Colors/AbstractColor.php:57

        return $this->channels;
    }

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     *
     * @see ColorInterface::channel()
     *
     * @throws InvalidArgumentException
     */
    public function channel(string $classname): ColorChannelInterface
    {
        $channels = array_filter(
            $this->channels(),
            fn(ColorChannelInterface $channel): bool => $channel::class === $classname,
        );

        if (count($channels) === 0) {
            throw new InvalidArgumentException('Color channel ' . $classname . ' could not be found');
        }

        return reset($channels);
    }

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     *
     * @see ColorInterface::toColorspace()
     *
     * @throws InvalidArgumentException
     */
    public function toColorspace(string|ColorspaceInterface $colorspace): ColorInterface
    {
        if (is_string($colorspace) && !class_exists($colorspace)) {
            throw new InvalidArgumentException('Unknown color space (' . $colorspace . ') as conversion target');
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to 5598b9e397)

Solutions

1. Use one of the nine exact lowercase values: 'left', 'center', 'right' (pure horizontal), or the diagonal forms like 'top-left'
2. Normalize input before passing: $value = strtolower(str_replace('_', '-', $userValue)) and map aliases yourself, or call Alignment::create($value) which understands the alias table, and pass the resulting enum
3. Pass an Alignment enum instance instead of a string to get static type safety

Example fix

// before
$font->align('center_left'); // not a backing value -> throws

// after
use Intervention\Image\Alignment;
$font->align(Alignment::create('center_left')); // alias-aware, returns Alignment::LEFT
// or simply: $font->align('left');

use Intervention\Image\Alignment;

$alignment = Alignment::tryFrom(strtolower((string) $input));
if ($alignment === null) {
    $alignment = Alignment::tryCreate((string) $input) // alias-aware fallback
        ?? throw new \InvalidArgumentException('Unsupported alignment: ' . $input);
}
$font->align($alignment);

use Intervention\Image\Alignment;

function toHorizontalAlignment(string $value): Alignment
{
    return Alignment::tryFrom(strtolower($value))
        ?? Alignment::tryCreate($value)
        ?? throw new \InvalidArgumentException('Invalid horizontal alignment: ' . $value);
}

use Intervention\Image\Exceptions\InvalidArgumentException;

try {
    $font->align($userValue);
} catch (InvalidArgumentException $e) {
    if (str_contains($e->getMessage(), 'alignment')) {
        $font->align('center'); // safe default
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: $font->align('center-left'), 'top_left', 'Center' (capitalized), 'middle', 'centre' or any custom string; feeding alignment from user input or a config file without validating it; values built by string concatenation ('top' . '-' . 'center').

Common situations: Front-end or API alignment values in snake_case or with mixed case; reusing values that worked with the position/Alignment::create() alias table elsewhere in the library; i18n/localized alignment names ('centro', 'Mitte') passed straight through.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

• Unknown color space ({colorspace}) as conversion target
• Unable to parse RGB color from input "{input}"
• Invalid $limit value. Must be int<1, max>
• Call to undefined method Intervention\Image\Image::{name}()
• Argument $extension must not be an empty string

AI-assisted analysis of Intervention/image@5598b9e397 (2026-08-23). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e0f861f8c8061ff1. Report an issue: GitHub.