PIL image show() doesn't work on windows 7

cyborg picture cyborg · Oct 10, 2011 · Viewed 13k times · Source

I would like to show an image using python on windows and other platforms. When I do:

from PIL import Image
im = Image.open('image.png')
im.show()

my default viewer opens up and tells me that Windows Photo Viewer can't open this picture because either this file was deleted , etc.

The file is probably deleted because PIL calls the os with the following command: "start /wait %s && del /f %s" % (file, file)

I found a workaround here. They recommend changing PIL's code to "start /wait %s && PING 127.0.0.1 -n 5 > NUL && del /f %s" % (file, file). However, I want others to be able to use my code.

Is there a simple solution? Should I look for an alternative to PIL that would work crossplatform?

Answer

cyborg picture cyborg · Oct 10, 2011

Ok, found a solution here:

import webbrowser
webbrowser.open('image.png')

It opens the default viewer, not the browser, on my machine.

Also, there is os.startfile.