imagecreatefromjpeg() php - php

Question

I'm using imagecreatefromjpeg() function to merge two pictures..
now the problem which I'm facing is that when I use the pictures from my server, it works perfectly and when I use pictures from some other website, it doesn't work.
For example: when I use this PHP file http://coolfbapps.in/test/merger.php with function
imagecreatefrompng('http://coolfbapps.in/test/1.png');
It works perfectly fine as the image is at my own server
but when I alter this function n put the link of an image which is not on my server,
for example.
imagecreatefrompng('http://www.businesseconomics/Test.png');
it doesnt work. (the image file is not on my server)
please suggest me an alternative to this function or a solution as I want to use this with Facebook apps..
Functions like file-get-contents are also showing the same error. I hope its not server end problem..
allow_url_fopen is on but
allow_url_include is off
Update...Actual code. I'm using this to merger two pictures
$dest = imagecreatefrompng('http://coolfbapps.in/test/1.png');
$src = imagejpeg('http://img.allvoices.com/thumbs/image/111/111/75152279-pic.jpg');
imagealphablending($dest, false);
imagesavealpha($dest, true);
imagecopymerge($dest, $src, 10, 9, 0, 0, 181, 180, 100);
header('Content-Type: image/png');
imagepng($dest);
imagedestroy($dest);
imagedestroy($src);

Answer 1

Instead of using file_get_content you can use cURL to get your image data. Here is a resource:
http://php.net/manual/en/book.curl.php
Example with getting html ( images will also work ):
<?php
$ch = curl_init("http://img.allvoices.com/thumbs/image/111/111/75152279-pic.jpg");
$fp = fopen("example_homepage.jpg", "w");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $fp);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
fclose($fp);
$img = imagecreatefromjpeg("example_homepage.jpg");
?>

Answer 2

Sounds like the function does not have URL opening capabilities, or it does and you have allow_url_fopen off in php.ini. You can't use ini_set() for security reasons.
You could download the file to your local server, and then open it.
file_put_contents('image.jpg',
file_get_contents('http://www.businesseconomics/Test.png')
);
You could probably use copy() too, the docs hint that it can read URLs.

Answer 3

Something like this might help.
$imagestr = file_get_contents('http://www.businesseconomics/Test.png');
$image = imagecreatefromstring($imagestr);
imagecreatefrompng($image);
UPDATED::
$imagestr = file_get_contents('http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/95111e2f99bb4b277764c76ad9ad3569?s=32&d=identicon&r=PG');
$image = imagecreatefromstring($imagestr);
header('Content-type: image/jpeg');
imagejpeg($image);