How can I install PIL on mac os x 10.7.2 Lion

Question

I've tried googling & looking up some other people's questions. However, I still couldn't find a clear/simple recipe to install PIL (for python 2.6 or 2.7) on mac os x 10.7.2 Lion.

Answer 1

If you use homebrew, you can install the PIL with just brew install pil. You may then need to add the install directory ($(brew --prefix)/lib/python2.7/site-packages) to your PYTHONPATH, or add the location of PIL directory itself in a file called PIL.pth file in any of your site-packages directories, with the contents:

/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/PIL

(assuming brew --prefix is /usr/local).

Alternatively, you can just download/build/install it from source:

# download
curl -O -L http://effbot.org/media/downloads/Imaging-1.1.7.tar.gz
# extract
tar -xzf Imaging-1.1.7.tar.gz
cd Imaging-1.1.7
# build and install
python setup.py build
sudo python setup.py install
# or install it for just you without requiring admin permissions:
# python setup.py install --user

I ran the above just now (on OSX 10.7.2, with XCode 4.2.1 and System Python 2.7.1) and it built just fine, though there is a possibility that something in my environment is non-default.