Why can't Python import Image from PIL?

Question

The single line that I am trying to run is the following:

from PIL import Image

However simple this may seem, it gives an error:

Answer 1

All the answers were great however what did it for me was a combination of uninstalling Pillow

pip uninstall Pillow

Then installing whatever packages you need e.g.

sudo apt-get -y install python-imaging
sudo apt-get -y install zlib1g-dev
sudo apt-get -y install libjpeg-dev

And then using easy_install to reinstall Pillow

easy_install Pillow

Hope this helps others

Answer 2

I had the same issue, and did this to fix it:

1. In command prompt

   pip install Pillow ##
   

2. Ensure that you use

   from PIL import Image
   

I in Image has to be capital. That was the issue in my case.

Answer 3

had the same error while using pytorch code which had deprecated pillow code. since PILLOW_VERSION was deprecated, i worked around it by:

Simply duplicating the _version file and renaming it as PILLOW_VERSION.py in the same folder.

worked for me

Answer 4

I had the same error. Here was my workflow. I first installed PIL (not Pillow) using

pip install --no-index -f https://dist.plone.org/thirdparty/ -U PIL

Then I found Pillow and installed it using

pip install Pillow

What fixed my issues was uninstalling both and reinstalling Pillow

pip uninstall PIL
pip uninstall Pillow
pip install Pillow

Answer 5

Now, I actually did some debugging with my brother and found that Pillow (PIL) needed to be initialized. I don't know how to initialize it, so you could probably stick with reinstalling Pillow.

Answer 6

FWIW, the following worked for me when I had this same error:

pip install --upgrade --force-reinstall pillow