There is a 3rth party extention to php for imlib2. While GD support could do, imlib2 is supposedly much faster and more powerful.
Created attachment 44884 [details] ebuild dev-php/php-imlib/php-imlib-0.3.ebuild
Hi, Sorry, but we won't add this package into Portage. I can't find the Debian patch listed in your email, and php-imlib2 is unmaintained upstream :( Best regards, Stu