How to hide image path from source code using PHP

Question

I want to hide image path from website. To do that first I did this:

<?php
// get image path
$path = 'images/profiles/uploads/' . $list['thumbnail'];
$type = pathinfo($path, PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
$data = file_get_contents($path);
$base64 = 'data:image/' . $type . ';base64,' . base64_encode($data);
?>

But this is very slow, So I try to implement like this, but code is not working:

download.php:

function setImgDownload($imagePath) {           
    $image = imagecreatefromjpeg($imagePath);
    header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');
    imagejpeg($image);
}

mypage.php:

<?php include('download.php'); ?>
<img src="<?php setImgDownload('images/Chrysanthemum.jpg') ?>" width="300"/>

If I put function and call function at the same page it's working:

function setImgDownload($imagePath) {
    $image = imagecreatefromjpeg($imagePath);
    header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');
    imagejpeg($image);
}

setImgDownload('images/Chrysanthemum.jpg');

How to keep function in separate page?

Answer 1

Try changing your mypage.php to

<?php
   include('download.php');
   echo "<img src='".setImgDownload('images/Chrysanthemum.jpg')."' width='300'/>"; // calling function inside php
?>

Here, instead creating the HTML element outside php, put it inside php using echo and just escape while calling the php function. This should give you what you need.