Installation

Warning

Pillow >= 2.1.0 no longer supports “import _imaging”. Please use “from PIL.Image import core as _imaging” instead.

Warning

Pillow >= 1.0 no longer supports “import Image”. Please use “from PIL import Image” instead.

Warning

PIL and Pillow currently cannot co-exist in the same environment. If you want to use Pillow, please remove PIL first.

Note

Pillow >= 2.0.0 supports Python versions 2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4

Note

Pillow < 2.0.0 supports Python versions 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7.

Simple installation

Note

The following instructions will install Pillow with support for most formats. See External libraries for the features you would gain by installing the external libraries first. This page probably also include specific instructions for your platform.

You can install Pillow with pip:

$ pip install Pillow

Or easy_install (for installing Python Eggs, as pip does not support them):

$ easy_install Pillow

Or download the compressed archive from PyPI, extract it, and inside it run:

$ python setup.py install

External libraries

Note

You do not need to install all of the external libraries to use Pillow’s basic features.

Many of Pillow’s features require external libraries:

  • libjpeg provides JPEG functionality.
    • Pillow has been tested with libjpeg versions 6b, 8, and 9 and libjpeg-turbo version 8.
  • zlib provides access to compressed PNGs
  • libtiff provides compressed TIFF functionality
    • Pillow has been tested with libtiff versions 3.x and 4.0
  • libfreetype provides type related services
  • littlecms provides color management
    • Pillow version 2.2.1 and below uses liblcms1, Pillow 2.3.0 and above uses liblcms2. Tested with 1.19 and 2.2.
  • libwebp provides the WebP format.
    • Pillow has been tested with version 0.1.3, which does not read transparent WebP files. Versions 0.3.0 and 0.4.0 support transparency.
  • tcl/tk provides support for tkinter bitmap and photo images.
  • openjpeg provides JPEG 2000 functionality.
    • Pillow has been tested with openjpeg 2.0.0 and 2.1.0.

Once you have installed the prerequisites,run:

$ pip install Pillow

If the prerequisites are installed in the standard library locations for your machine (e.g. /usr or /usr/local), no additional configuration should be required. If they are installed in a non-standard location, you may need to configure setuptools to use those locations by editing setup.py or setup.cfg, or by adding environment variables on the command line:

$ CFLAGS="-I/usr/pkg/include" pip install pillow

Build Options

  • Environment Variable: MAX_CONCURRENCY=n. By default, Pillow will use multiprocessing to build the extension on all available CPUs, but not more than 4. Setting MAX_CONCURRENCY to 1 will disable parallel building.
  • Build flags: --disable-zlib, --disable-jpeg, --disable-tiff, --disable-freetype, --disable-tcl, --disable-tk, --disable-lcms, --disable-webp, --disable-webpmux, --disable-jpeg2000. Disable building the corresponding feature even if the development libraries are present on the building machine.
  • Build flags: --enable-zlib, --enable-jpeg, --enable-tiff, --enable-freetype, --enable-tcl, --enable-tk, --enable-lcms, --enable-webp, --enable-webpmux, --enable-jpeg2000. Require that the corresponding feature is built. The build will raise an exception if the libraries are not found. Webpmux (WebP metadata) relies on WebP support. Tcl and Tk also must be used together.

Sample Usage:

$ MAX_CONCURRENCY=1 python setup.py build-ext --enable-[feature] install

Linux installation

Note

Fedora, Debian/Ubuntu, and ArchLinux include Pillow (instead of PIL) with their distributions. Consider using those instead of installing manually.

We do not provide binaries for Linux. If you didn’t build Python from source, make sure you have Python’s development libraries installed. In Debian or Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install python-dev python-setuptools

Or for Python 3:

$ sudo apt-get install python3-dev python3-setuptools

In Fedora, the command is:

$ sudo yum install python-devel

Prerequisites are installed on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or Raspian Wheezy 7.0 with:

$ sudo apt-get install libtiff4-dev libjpeg8-dev zlib1g-dev \
    libfreetype6-dev liblcms2-dev libwebp-dev tcl8.5-dev tk8.5-dev python-tk

Prerequisites are installed on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with:

$ sudo apt-get install libtiff5-dev libjpeg8-dev zlib1g-dev \
    libfreetype6-dev liblcms2-dev libwebp-dev tcl8.6-dev tk8.6-dev python-tk

Prerequisites are installed on Fedora 20 with:

$ sudo yum install libtiff-devel libjpeg-devel libzip-devel freetype-devel \
    lcms2-devel libwebp-devel tcl-devel tk-devel

Mac OS X installation

We provide binaries for OS X in the form of Python Wheels. Alternatively you can compile Pillow with with XCode.

The easiest way to install external libraries is via Homebrew. After you install Homebrew, run:

$ brew install libtiff libjpeg webp little-cms2

Install Pillow with:

$ pip install Pillow

Windows installation

We provide binaries for Windows in the form of Python Eggs and Python Wheels:

Python Eggs

Note

pip does not support Python Eggs; use easy_install instead.

$ easy_install Pillow

Python Wheels

Note

Experimental. Requires setuptools >=0.8 and pip >=1.4.1

$ pip install --use-wheel Pillow

If the above does not work, it’s likely because we haven’t uploaded a wheel for the latest version of Pillow. In that case, try pinning it to a specific version:

$ pip install --use-wheel Pillow==2.6.1

FreeBSD installation

Note

Only FreeBSD 10 tested

Make sure you have Python’s development libraries installed.:

$ sudo pkg install python2

Or for Python 3:

$ sudo pkg install python3

Prerequisites are installed on FreeBSD 10 with:

$ sudo pkg install jpeg tiff webp lcms2 freetype2

Platform support

Current platform support for Pillow. Binary distributions are contributed for each release on a volunteer basis, but the source should compile and run everywhere platform support is listed. In general, we aim to support all current versions of Linux, OS X, and Windows.

Note

Contributors please test on your platform, edit this document, and send a pull request.

Operating system Supported Tested Python versions Tested Pillow versions Tested processors
Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite       x86-64
Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks Yes 2.7,3.4 2.6.1 x86-64
Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Yes 2.6,2.7,3.2,3.3   x86-64
Redhat Linux 6 Yes 2.6   x86
CentOS 6.3 Yes 2.7,3.3   x86
Fedora 20 Yes 2.7,3.3 2.3.0 x86-64
Ubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS Yes 2.6 2.3.0 x86,x86-64
Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS Yes

2.6,2.7,3.2,3.3,PyPy2.4, PyPy3,v2.3

2.7,3.2

2.6.1

2.6.1

x86,x86-64

ppc
Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS Yes 2.7,3.2,3.3,3.4 2.3.0 x86
Raspian Wheezy Yes 2.7,3.2 2.3.0 arm
Gentoo Linux Yes 2.7,3.2 2.1.0 x86-64
FreeBSD 10 Yes 2.7,3.4 2.4,2.3.1 x86-64
Windows 7 Pro Yes 2.7,3.2,3.3 2.2.1 x86-64
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Yes 3.3   x86-64
Windows 8 Pro Yes 2.6,2.7,3.2,3.3,3.4a3 2.2.0 x86,x86-64
Windows 8.1 Pro Yes 2.6,2.7,3.2,3.3,3.4 2.3.0, 2.4.0 x86,x86-64

Old Versions

You can download old distributions from PyPI. Only the latest 1.x and 2.x releases are visible, but all releases are available by direct URL access e.g. https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Pillow/1.0.