Merge two PNG images with PHP GD library - php

Question

Does anybody have a script which can merge two PNG images?
With the following conditions:
Both images have transparent areas
The second image must have 50% opacity (it is overlaid over the first image)
Here is what I tried to do but without luck:
<?php
function imagecopymerge_alpha($dst_im, $src_im, $dst_x, $dst_y, $src_x, $src_y, $src_w, $src_h, $pct){
$cut = imagecreatetruecolor($src_w, $src_h);
imagecopy($cut, $dst_im, 0, 0, $dst_x, $dst_y, $src_w, $src_h);
imagecopy($cut, $src_im, 0, 0, $src_x, $src_y, $src_w, $src_h);
imagecopymerge($dst_im, $cut, $dst_x, $dst_y, 0, 0, $src_w, $src_h, $pct);
}
$image1 = imagecreatefrompng('a.png'); //300 x 300
$image2 = imagecreatefrompng('b.png'); //150 x 150
$merged_image = imagecreatetruecolor(300, 300);
imagealphablending($merged_image, false);
imagesavealpha($merged_image, true);
imagecopy($merged_image, $image1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 300, 300);
imagecopymerge_alpha($merged_image, $image2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 150, 150, 50);
header('Content-Type: image/png');
imagepng($merged_image);
?>
Edit:
First Image (left) and Second Image (right)
This is how it should be (left) and the result of my code (right)
The result of the solution proposed by dqhendricks

Answer 1

$image1 = imagecreatefrompng('a.png'); //300 x 300
$image2 = imagecreatefrompng('b.png'); //150 x 150
imagecopymerge($image1, $image2, 0, 0, 75, 75, 150, 150, 50);
this should be all you need. $image1 should hold the merged image where image2 has been overlayed with 50% opacity. the last argument is the alpha of the merged copy.
http://php.net/manual/en/function.imagecopymerge.php

Answer 2

$merged_image = imagecreatetruecolor(300, 300);
imagealphablending($merged_image, false);
imagesavealpha($merged_image, true);
imagecopy($merged_image, $image1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 300, 300);
// after first time of "imagecopy" change "imagealphablending"
imagealphablending($merged_image, **true**);
imagecopy($merged_image, $image2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 300, 300);