Python Imaging Library is a free and open-source additional library for the Python programming language that adds support for opening, manipulating, and saving many different image file formats. It is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. The latest version of PIL is 1.1.7, was released in September 2009 and supports Python 1.5.2–2.7.

Development of the original project, known as PIL, was discontinued in 2011. Subsequently, a successor project named Pillow forked the PIL repository and added Python 3.x support. This fork has been adopted as a replacement for the original PIL in Linux distributions including Debian and Ubuntu (since 13.04).

Capabilities

PIL offers several standard procedures for image manipulation. These include:

  • per-pixel manipulations,
  • masking and transparency handling,
  • image filtering, such as blurring, contouring, smoothing, or edge finding,
  • image enhancing, such as sharpening, adjusting brightness, contrast or color,
  • adding text

File formats

Supported file formats include PPM, PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, and BMP. PIL is extensible, allowing users to create custom decoders for any file format.

Programming examples

External links

  • Python Imaging Library at Wikibooks