Looking for a better alternative to PIL for basic image file I/O and processing in Python?

Question

Are there better alternatives to PIL (Python Imaging Library - http://is.gd/3OPI ) for basic image file I/O and processing in Python?

Answer 1

Not really. PIL is pretty much what everybody uses. I've never had any difficulties with it myself. However, if you really don't like it, you could check out PythonMagick or PythonMagickWand, which are wrappers around ImageMagick, which may be more to your taste.

Answer 2

If by 'better' you mean "faster" or "less memory intensive" or (the big one in my experiments) "able to handle much larger images," you might be able to use the Python interface to VIPS:

http://www.vips.ecs.soton.ac.uk/index.php?title=Python

However, if 'better' means "well-tested in Python," or "Windows-friendly," VIPS won't fit the bill.