libvips

libvips is a free and open-source image processing library. It is designed for efficient handling of large images. Unlike many other image processing libraries, libvips uses a depth-first, demand-driven evaluation strategy. This means that it processes images in small tiles, only loading the parts of the image that are needed for the current operation. This approach significantly reduces memory usage, allowing libvips to handle images that are much larger than the available RAM.

The library is written in C and provides a C API. It also has bindings for many other programming languages, including Python, Ruby, Node.js, and PHP, making it accessible to a wide range of developers. libvips supports a vast number of image formats, including JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, SVG, and many more. Its core functionality includes resizing, cropping, rotating, color manipulation, format conversion, and complex image compositions.

libvips is known for its speed and low memory footprint, making it a popular choice for web image processing, scientific imaging, and any application that needs to handle large or numerous images efficiently. Its design also makes it well-suited for parallel processing. The library is actively maintained and has a strong community following.