[PHP] Is PHP a good language to work with images?

[Rui Silva]

Hello!
 
I need to print an image file, but I'm having some problems. 
I have a handler to a printer witch I can print text correctly with the
printer_write function. 
I can also print an image if it is in bmp format (printer_draw_bmp),
however, I want to print png files.
 
$im = imagecreatefrompng($url)
$handler = printer_open("PATH_TO_PRINTER");
if($handler){
            printer_write($handler,$im);
printer_close($handler);
}
else{
            //ERROR
}
 
In this example I can't print, because printer_write function just
prints text.
How can I print an image file?
 
Thank you!