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

Failed to apply {class}, unable to invert image colors

Error message

Failed to apply {class}, unable to invert image colors

What it means

Thrown by the Imagick driver when Imagick::negateImage() returns false instead of throwing while inverting a frame's color channels (alpha bit masked off so transparency stays intact). The library converts the falsy native return into a ModifierException so that both failure shapes (boolean false and ImagickException) surface as one exception type. A bare false return without a chained exception is the rarer path and usually points to a low-level ImageMagick refusal rather than bad input data.

Source

Thrown at src/Drivers/Imagick/Modifiers/InvertModifier.php:32

class InvertModifier extends GenericInvertModifier implements SpecializedInterface
{
    /**
     * @throws ModifierException
     */
    public function apply(ImageInterface $image): ImageInterface
    {
        // Imagick::CHANNEL_DEFAULT includes the alpha channel, so a plain
        // negateImage() call inverts transparency along with color and turns
        // fully transparent pixels opaque. Mask the alpha bit off so the
        // result matches the GD driver, where IMG_FILTER_NEGATE only touches
        // the color channels.
        $channel = Imagick::CHANNEL_ALL & ~Imagick::CHANNEL_ALPHA;

        foreach ($image as $frame) {
            try {
                $result = $frame->native()->negateImage(false, $channel);
                if ($result === false) {
                    throw new ModifierException(
                        'Failed to apply ' . self::class . ', unable to invert image colors',
                    );
                }
            } catch (ImagickException $e) {
                throw new ModifierException(
                    'Failed to apply ' . self::class . ', unable to invert image colors',
                    previous: $e,
                );
            }
        }

        return $image;
    }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 5598b9e397)

Solutions

1. Catch ModifierException and read $e->getPrevious()?->getMessage() to get the native ImageMagick reason
2. Check the installed stack: php -i | grep -i imagick and Imagick::getVersion(), then upgrade the imagick extension if it predates ImageMagick 6.9/7.x
3. Compare memory_limit with the frame size (width x height x 4 bytes) and raise it, or inspect policy.xml for denied operations
4. Re-encode the source file (e.g. re-save it) to rule out truncated image data, then retry the invert

Example fix

// before
$image->invert(); // unguarded

// after
use Intervention\Image\Exceptions\ModifierException;

try {
    $image->invert();
} catch (ModifierException $e) {
    $reason = $e->getPrevious()?->getMessage() ?? $e->getMessage();
    $logger->error('Invert failed: ' . $reason);
}

use Intervention\Image\Exceptions\ModifierException;

try {
    $image->invert();
} catch (ModifierException $e) {
    $reason = $e->getPrevious()?->getMessage() ?? 'no native error';
    // decision point: log, skip modifier, or rethrow
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling $image->invert() on the Imagick driver and negateImage() returning false for at least one frame: ImageMagick security policy (policy.xml) denies the operation, the pixel cache for the frame cannot be allocated, or an old imagick extension build reports failure instead of throwing.

Common situations: Shared hosting with restrictive /etc/ImageMagick-*/policy.xml; very large images that exhaust PHP memory_limit before Imagick can negate; imagick PECL extension compiled against a mismatched libmagick version after a system update.

Related errors

• Failed to apply Intervention\Image\Drivers\Imagick\Modifiers
• Failed to apply Intervention\Image\Drivers\Imagick\Modifiers
• Failed to apply Intervention\Image\Drivers\Imagick\Modifiers
• Failed to apply Intervention\Image\Drivers\Imagick\Modifiers
• Failed to apply Intervention\Image\Drivers\Imagick\Modifiers

AI-assisted analysis of Intervention/image@5598b9e397 (2026-08-23). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1371d4c510561197. Report an issue: GitHub.