Deprecations and removals

This page lists Pillow features that are deprecated, or have been removed in past major releases, and gives the alternatives to use instead.

Deprecated features

Below are features which are considered deprecated. Where appropriate, a DeprecationWarning is issued.

Tk/Tcl 8.4

Deprecated since version 8.2.0.

Support for Tk/Tcl 8.4 is deprecated and will be removed in Pillow 10.0.0 (2023-07-01), when Tk/Tcl 8.5 will be the minimum supported.

Categories

Deprecated since version 8.2.0.

im.category is deprecated and will be removed in Pillow 10.0.0 (2023-07-01), along with the related Image.NORMAL, Image.SEQUENCE and Image.CONTAINER attributes.

To determine if an image has multiple frames or not, getattr(im, "is_animated", False) can be used instead.

JpegImagePlugin.convert_dict_qtables

Deprecated since version 8.3.0.

JPEG quantization is now automatically converted, but still returned as a dictionary. The convert_dict_qtables method no longer performs any operations on the data given to it, has been deprecated and will be removed in Pillow 10.0.0 (2023-07-01).

ImagePalette size parameter

Deprecated since version 8.4.0.

The size parameter will be removed in Pillow 10.0.0 (2023-07-01).

Before Pillow 8.3.0, ImagePalette required palette data of particular lengths by default, and the size parameter could be used to override that. Pillow 8.3.0 removed the default required length, also removing the need for the size parameter.

ImageShow.Viewer.show_file file argument

Deprecated since version 9.1.0.

The file argument in show_file() has been deprecated and will be removed in Pillow 10.0.0 (2023-07-01). It has been replaced by path.

In effect, viewer.show_file("test.jpg") will continue to work unchanged. viewer.show_file(file="test.jpg") will raise a deprecation warning, and suggest viewer.show_file(path="test.jpg") instead.

Constants

Deprecated since version 9.1.0.

A number of constants have been deprecated and will be removed in Pillow 10.0.0 (2023-07-01). Instead, enum.IntEnum classes have been added.

Note

Additional Image constants were deprecated in Pillow 9.1.0, but that was reversed in Pillow 9.4.0 and those constants will now remain available. See Constants

Deprecated

Use instead

Image.LINEAR

Image.BILINEAR or Image.Resampling.BILINEAR

Image.CUBIC

Image.BICUBIC or Image.Resampling.BICUBIC

Image.ANTIALIAS

Image.LANCZOS or Image.Resampling.LANCZOS

ImageCms.INTENT_PERCEPTUAL

ImageCms.Intent.PERCEPTUAL

ImageCms.INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORMETRIC

ImageCms.Intent.RELATIVE_COLORMETRIC

ImageCms.INTENT_SATURATION

ImageCms.Intent.SATURATION

ImageCms.INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC

ImageCms.Intent.ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC

ImageCms.DIRECTION_INPUT

ImageCms.Direction.INPUT

ImageCms.DIRECTION_OUTPUT

ImageCms.Direction.OUTPUT

ImageCms.DIRECTION_PROOF

ImageCms.Direction.PROOF

ImageFont.LAYOUT_BASIC

ImageFont.Layout.BASIC

ImageFont.LAYOUT_RAQM

ImageFont.Layout.RAQM

BlpImagePlugin.BLP_FORMAT_JPEG

BlpImagePlugin.Format.JPEG

BlpImagePlugin.BLP_ENCODING_UNCOMPRESSED

BlpImagePlugin.Encoding.UNCOMPRESSED

BlpImagePlugin.BLP_ENCODING_DXT

BlpImagePlugin.Encoding.DXT

BlpImagePlugin.BLP_ENCODING_UNCOMPRESSED_RAW_RGBA

BlpImagePlugin.Encoding.UNCOMPRESSED_RAW_RGBA

BlpImagePlugin.BLP_ALPHA_ENCODING_DXT1

BlpImagePlugin.AlphaEncoding.DXT1

BlpImagePlugin.BLP_ALPHA_ENCODING_DXT3

BlpImagePlugin.AlphaEncoding.DXT3

BlpImagePlugin.BLP_ALPHA_ENCODING_DXT5

BlpImagePlugin.AlphaEncoding.DXT5

FtexImagePlugin.FORMAT_DXT1

FtexImagePlugin.Format.DXT1

FtexImagePlugin.FORMAT_UNCOMPRESSED

FtexImagePlugin.Format.UNCOMPRESSED

PngImagePlugin.APNG_DISPOSE_OP_NONE

PngImagePlugin.Disposal.OP_NONE

PngImagePlugin.APNG_DISPOSE_OP_BACKGROUND

PngImagePlugin.Disposal.OP_BACKGROUND

PngImagePlugin.APNG_DISPOSE_OP_PREVIOUS

PngImagePlugin.Disposal.OP_PREVIOUS

PngImagePlugin.APNG_BLEND_OP_SOURCE

PngImagePlugin.Blend.OP_SOURCE

PngImagePlugin.APNG_BLEND_OP_OVER

PngImagePlugin.Blend.OP_OVER

FitsStubImagePlugin

Deprecated since version 9.1.0.

The stub image plugin FitsStubImagePlugin has been deprecated and will be removed in Pillow 10.0.0 (2023-07-01). FITS images can be read without a handler through FitsImagePlugin instead.

FreeTypeFont.getmask2 fill parameter

Deprecated since version 9.2.0.

The undocumented fill parameter of FreeTypeFont.getmask2() has been deprecated and will be removed in Pillow 10 (2023-07-01).

PhotoImage.paste box parameter

Deprecated since version 9.2.0.

The box parameter is unused. It will be removed in Pillow 10.0.0 (2023-07-01).

PyQt5 and PySide2

Deprecated since version 9.2.0.

Qt 5 reached end-of-life on 2020-12-08 for open-source users (and will reach EOL on 2023-12-08 for commercial licence holders).

Support for PyQt5 and PySide2 has been deprecated from ImageQt and will be removed in Pillow 10 (2023-07-01). Upgrade to PyQt6 or PySide6 instead.

Image.coerce_e

Deprecated since version 9.2.0.

This undocumented method has been deprecated and will be removed in Pillow 10 (2023-07-01).

Font size and offset methods

Deprecated since version 9.2.0.

Several functions for computing the size and offset of rendered text have been deprecated and will be removed in Pillow 10 (2023-07-01):

Deprecated

Use instead

FreeTypeFont.getsize() and FreeTypeFont.getoffset()

FreeTypeFont.getbbox() and FreeTypeFont.getlength()

FreeTypeFont.getsize_multiline()

ImageDraw.multiline_textbbox()

ImageFont.getsize()

ImageFont.getbbox() and ImageFont.getlength()

TransposedFont.getsize()

TransposedFont.getbbox() and TransposedFont.getlength()

ImageDraw.textsize() and ImageDraw.multiline_textsize()

ImageDraw.textbbox(), ImageDraw.textlength() and ImageDraw.multiline_textbbox()

ImageDraw2.Draw.textsize()

ImageDraw2.Draw.textbbox() and ImageDraw2.Draw.textlength()

Previous code:

from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageFont

font = ImageFont.truetype("Tests/fonts/FreeMono.ttf")
width, height = font.getsize("Hello world")
left, top = font.getoffset("Hello world")

im = Image.new("RGB", (100, 100))
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(im)
width, height = draw.textsize("Hello world")

width, height = font.getsize_multiline("Hello\nworld")
width, height = draw.multiline_textsize("Hello\nworld")

Use instead:

from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageFont

font = ImageFont.truetype("Tests/fonts/FreeMono.ttf")
left, top, right, bottom = font.getbbox("Hello world")
width, height = right - left, bottom - top

im = Image.new("RGB", (100, 100))
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(im)
width = draw.textlength("Hello world")

left, top, right, bottom = draw.multiline_textbbox((0, 0), "Hello\nworld")
width, height = right - left, bottom - top

Removed features

Deprecated features are only removed in major releases after an appropriate period of deprecation has passed.

PILLOW_VERSION constant

Deprecated since version 5.2.0.

Use __version__ instead.

It was initially removed in Pillow 7.0.0, but temporarily brought back in 7.1.0 to give projects more time to upgrade.

Image.show command parameter

Deprecated since version 7.2.0.

The command parameter has been removed. Use a subclass of ImageShow.Viewer instead.

Image._showxv

Deprecated since version 7.2.0.

Use Image.Image.show() instead. If custom behaviour is required, use ImageShow.register() to add a custom ImageShow.Viewer class.

ImageFile.raise_ioerror

Deprecated since version 7.2.0.

IOError was merged into OSError in Python 3.3. So, ImageFile.raise_ioerror has been removed. Use ImageFile.raise_oserror instead.

FreeType 2.7

Deprecated since version 8.1.0.

Support for FreeType 2.7 has been removed.

We recommend upgrading to at least FreeType 2.10.4, which fixed a severe vulnerability introduced in FreeType 2.6 (CVE-2020-15999).

im.offset

Deprecated since version 1.1.2.

im.offset() has been removed, call ImageChops.offset() instead.

It was documented as deprecated in PIL 1.1.2, raised a DeprecationWarning since 1.1.5, an Exception since Pillow 3.0.0 and NotImplementedError since 3.3.0.

Image.fromstring, im.fromstring and im.tostring

Deprecated since version 2.0.0.

  • Image.fromstring() has been removed, call Image.frombytes() instead.

  • im.fromstring() has been removed, call frombytes() instead.

  • im.tostring() has been removed, call tobytes() instead.

They issued a DeprecationWarning since 2.0.0, an Exception since 3.0.0 and NotImplementedError since 3.3.0.

ImageCms.CmsProfile attributes

Deprecated since version 3.2.0.

Some attributes in PIL.ImageCms.CmsProfile have been removed. From 6.0.0, they issued a DeprecationWarning:

Removed

Use instead

color_space

Padded xcolor_space

pcs

Padded connection_space

product_copyright

Unicode copyright

product_desc

Unicode profile_description

product_description

Unicode profile_description

product_manufacturer

Unicode manufacturer

product_model

Unicode model

Python 2.7

Deprecated since version 6.0.0.

Python 2.7 reached end-of-life on 2020-01-01. Pillow 6.x was the last series to support Python 2.

Image.__del__

Deprecated since version 6.1.0.

Implicitly closing the image’s underlying file in Image.__del__ has been removed. Use a context manager or call Image.close() instead to close the file in a deterministic way.

Previous method:

im = Image.open("hopper.png")
im.save("out.jpg")

Use instead:

with Image.open("hopper.png") as im:
    im.save("out.jpg")

PIL.*ImagePlugin.__version__ attributes

Deprecated since version 6.0.0.

The version constants of individual plugins have been removed. Use PIL.__version__ instead.

Removed

Removed

Removed

BmpImagePlugin.__version__

Jpeg2KImagePlugin.__version__

PngImagePlugin.__version__

CurImagePlugin.__version__

JpegImagePlugin.__version__

PpmImagePlugin.__version__

DcxImagePlugin.__version__

McIdasImagePlugin.__version__

PsdImagePlugin.__version__

EpsImagePlugin.__version__

MicImagePlugin.__version__

SgiImagePlugin.__version__

FliImagePlugin.__version__

MpegImagePlugin.__version__

SunImagePlugin.__version__

FpxImagePlugin.__version__

MpoImagePlugin.__version__

TgaImagePlugin.__version__

GdImageFile.__version__

MspImagePlugin.__version__

TiffImagePlugin.__version__

GifImagePlugin.__version__

PalmImagePlugin.__version__

WmfImagePlugin.__version__

IcoImagePlugin.__version__

PcdImagePlugin.__version__

XbmImagePlugin.__version__

ImImagePlugin.__version__

PcxImagePlugin.__version__

XpmImagePlugin.__version__

ImtImagePlugin.__version__

PdfImagePlugin.__version__

XVThumbImagePlugin.__version__

IptcImagePlugin.__version__

PixarImagePlugin.__version__

PyQt4 and PySide

Deprecated since version 6.0.0.

Qt 4 reached end-of-life on 2015-12-19. Its Python bindings are also EOL: PyQt4 since 2018-08-31 and PySide since 2015-10-14.

Support for PyQt4 and PySide has been removed from ImageQt. Please upgrade to PyQt5 or PySide2.

Setting the size of TIFF images

Deprecated since version 5.3.0.

Setting the size of a TIFF image directly (eg. im.size = (256, 256)) throws an error. Use Image.resize instead.

VERSION constant

Deprecated since version 5.2.0.

VERSION (the old PIL version, always 1.1.7) has been removed. Use __version__ instead.

Undocumented ImageOps functions

Deprecated since version 4.3.0.

Several undocumented functions in ImageOps have been removed. Use the equivalents in ImageFilter instead:

Removed

Use instead

ImageOps.box_blur

ImageFilter.BoxBlur

ImageOps.gaussian_blur

ImageFilter.GaussianBlur

ImageOps.gblur

ImageFilter.GaussianBlur

ImageOps.usm

ImageFilter.UnsharpMask

ImageOps.unsharp_mask

ImageFilter.UnsharpMask

PIL.OleFileIO

Deprecated since version 4.0.0.

PIL.OleFileIO was removed as a vendored file in Pillow 4.0.0 (2017-01) in favour of the upstream olefile Python package, and replaced with an ImportError in 5.0.0 (2018-01). The deprecated file has now been removed from Pillow. If needed, install from PyPI (eg. python3 -m pip install olefile).