Why are there 7 ways to make a black image?

[daviddoria]

I was reading through some of the examples, and I am confused as to why there are 7 ways to make a solid black image:
http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/canvas/#other

Maybe I am missing the point of the "canvas"? But what I'm imagining is that you just want a solid background to start working on, so why would you need to use one of those methods over another?

Dave

[fmw42]

Anthony was just being thorough and trying to show there are many ways to skin the cat.

If you just want a black background and know the size you need, then just do

convert -size WIDTHxHEIGHT xc:black blackimage.png

(or any other suffix you want)

[daviddoria]

haha ok, thats the one that made the most sense, so I'll just stick with that.

Dave

[anthony]

Most of the other methods are to take an existing image and turn it into a black canvas that is the same size.

This is only important when writing a IM command so it can handle an image that is ANY SIZE, and not limit the command to a specific sized image.