Python imaging alternatives

Question

I have python code that needs to do just a couple simple things to photographs: crop, resize, and overlay a watermark. I\'ve used PIL, and the resample/resize results are TERRIB

Answer 1

I'm unsure as to why Image.thumbnail is getting such flak. In the present release that I'm running off of it does little more than figure out the desired size and resize the image in place. As long as you're using the proper resample filter and convert to RGB first (as bobince says) thumbnail shouldn't be any different than resize.

Here's the actual source for the thumbnail method:

def thumbnail(self, size, resample=NEAREST):
  # preserve aspect ratio
  x, y = self.size
  if x > size[0]: y = max(y * size[0] / x, 1); x = size[0]
  if y > size[1]: x = max(x * size[1] / y, 1); y = size[1]
  size = x, y

  if size == self.size:
      return

  self.draft(None, size)

  self.load()

  try:
      im = self.resize(size, resample)
  except ValueError:
      if resample != ANTIALIAS:
          raise
      im = self.resize(size, NEAREST) # fallback

  self.im = im.im
  self.mode = im.mode
  self.size = size

  self.readonly = 0