$re = '/\s*"\s*([^ "]+)"\s*(?=[">])|(?<=")("")(?=")/';
$str = '<img src="imagename=g1" alt = "">
<img src="imagename="g1"" alt = """">
<img src="imagename="g1"" alt = ""abc"">';
$subst = "$1";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php