use strict;
use warnings;
use GD;

my $image;

# $image = GD::Image->new($data)
# If something goes wrong, this call will return undef.
# so one could do :
($image = GD::Image->new("test.jpg")) or warn "Error: $!";
# or
if (! ($image = GD::Image->new("test.jpg")) )  {
    print "my error handling\n";
}
# eval trapping would work too...