Merging image layers using php

Hey im trying to make a signature generator and I have multiple images going over eachother. And when the user clicks “create signature” I want it to merge all of the selected layers into 1 png image. I know its possible but for some reason it never works for me.

I was using something like this, but all it did was create a bunch of jiberish text on my web page without actually creating the image.

$image = imagecreatefromstring(file_get_contents(URL OF IMAGE);
$frame = imagecreatefromstring(file_get_contents(URL OF IMAGE));

imagecopymerge($image, $frame, 0, 0, 0, 0, 50, 50, 100);

imagepng($image);

Can someone help me out to get this to work please?

Also, is it possible to merge text layers to the image too? If its possible, could you include that too please?

1/ The "jiberish text " was probably the image and you had the wrong headers so it was not displaying it as an image.

2/ I always recomend starting simple and building up - create a dedicated page with just your code and absolute paths. When that is working OK move on to getting remote files and variables etc.

P.S. Your actual code is better than “I was using something like this”.