How to open PIL Image in Tkinter on Canvas

Question

I can't seem to get my PIL Image to work on canvas. Code:

from Tkinter import*
import Image, ImageTk
root = Tk()
root.geometry('1000x1000')
canvas = Canvas(root,width=999,height=999)
canvas.pack()
image = ImageTk.PhotoImage("ball.gif")
imagesprite = canvas.create_image(400,400,image=image)
root.mainloop()

Error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/Users/Mark Malkin/Desktop/3d Graphics Testing/afdds.py", line 7, in <module>
    image = ImageTk.PhotoImage("ball.gif")
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\PIL\ImageTk.py", line 109, in __init__
    mode = Image.getmodebase(mode)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\PIL\Image.py", line 245, in getmodebase
    return ImageMode.getmode(mode).basemode
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\PIL\ImageMode.py", line 50, in getmode
    return _modes[mode]
KeyError: 'ball.gif'

I need to use PIL images not PhotoImages because I want to resize my images. Please don't suggest switching to Pygame because I want to use Tkinter.

Answer 1

Try creating a PIL Image first, then using that to create the PhotoImage.

from Tkinter import *
import Image, ImageTk
root = Tk()
root.geometry('1000x1000')
canvas = Canvas(root,width=999,height=999)
canvas.pack()
pilImage = Image.open("ball.gif")
image = ImageTk.PhotoImage(pilImage)
imagesprite = canvas.create_image(400,400,image=image)
root.mainloop()

Answer 2

(An old question, but the answers so far are only half-complete.)

Read the docs:

class PIL.ImageTk.PhotoImage(image=None, size=None, **kw)

• image – Either a PIL image, or a mode string. [...]
• file – A filename to load the image from (using Image.open(file)).

So in your example, use

image = ImageTk.PhotoImage(file="ball.gif")

or explicitly

image = ImageTk.PhotoImage(Image("ball.gif"))

(And remember – as you did correctly: Keep a reference to the image object in your Python program, otherwise it is garbage-collected before you seee it.)

Answer 3

You can import multiple image formats, and resize with this code. "basewidth" sets the width of your image.

from Tkinter import *
import PIL
from PIL import ImageTk, Image

root=Tk()
image = Image.open("/path/to/your/image.jpg")
canvas=Canvas(root, height=200, width=200)
basewidth = 150
wpercent = (basewidth / float(image.size[0]))
hsize = int((float(image.size[1]) * float(wpercent)))
image = image.resize((basewidth, hsize), PIL.Image.ANTIALIAS)
photo = ImageTk.PhotoImage(image)
item4 = canvas.create_image(100, 80, image=photo)

canvas.pack(side = TOP, expand=True, fill=BOTH)
root.mainloop()

Answer 4

I was banging my head against the wall for a while on this issue until I found the following:

http://effbot.org/pyfaq/why-do-my-tkinter-images-not-appear.htm

Apparently, Python's garbage collector can trash the ImageTk object. I imagine apps using alot of widgets (like mine) are more susceptible to this behavior.