Stut, Shouting is something that happens when people are actually speaking and listening. In a medium where there is no other way to emphasize salient points in a message, capitalization is all that works. I'm sorry it offended your sensabilities. realpath() fails, just like file_exists() fails, to report the file as non-existant. echo "realpath(\$basePicture) returns '" . realpath($basePicture) . "'<br>\n"; echo "when \$basePicture is '" . $basePicture . "'<br>\n"; ------------------------------------------------------------------- generates ------------------------------------------------------------------- realpath($basePicture) returns '/Stan-and-Jeanne.com/pictures/2008 west coast trip/2008-06-10 first week at Chris'/DSC_0011.jpg' when $basePicture is '../pictures/2008 west coast trip/2008-06-10 first week at Chris'/DSC_0011.jpg' ------------------------------------------------------------------- but ls DSC_0011.* in ../pictures/2008 west coast trip/2008-06-10 first week at Chris' returns only ------------------------------------------------------------------- DSC_0011.JPG ------------------------------------------------------------------- and ------------------------------------------------------------------- try {$image = new IMagick($basePicture); } catch (Exception $e) { echo 'Caught exception: ', $e->getMessage(), "\n"; } ------------------------------------------------------------------- results in ------------------------------------------------------------------- Caught exception: unable to open image `/Stan-and-Jeanne.com/pictures/2008 west coast trip/2008-06-10 first week at Chris'/DSC_0011.jpg': No such file or directory ------------------------------------------------------------------- so ... the following takes care of the extension problem in a very time expensive way ------------------------------------------------------------------- try { $image = new IMagick($basePicture); } catch (Exception $e) { $basePicture = substr($basePicture, 0, strrpos($basePicture, ".")) . "." . strtoupper(substr($basePicture, strrpos($basePicture, ".") + 1)); } unset($image); ------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't actually consider this solved and I'll return to it after everything else at least works. Now I can proceed to my next problem. Thanks to all, Stan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php