13.0.0 (unreleased)¶
Security¶
TODO¶
TODO
CVE YYYY-XXXXX: TODO¶
TODO
Backwards incompatible changes¶
Python 3.10¶
Pillow has dropped support for Python 3.10, which reached end-of-life in October 2026.
Saving I mode images as PNG¶
In order to fit the 32 bits of I mode images into PNG, when PNG images can only contain at most 16 bits for a channel, Pillow has been clipping the values. Rather than quietly changing the data, this is now removed. Instead, the image can be converted to another mode before saving:
from PIL import Image
im = Image.new("I", (1, 1))
im.convert("I;16").save("out.png")
Image.fromarray mode parameter¶
Using the mode parameter in fromarray() was deprecated in
Pillow 11.3.0. In Pillow 12.0.0, this was partially reverted, and now the only
functionality removed is when the mode changes data types. Since pixel values do not
contain information about palettes or color spaces, the parameter can still be used to
place grayscale L mode data within a P mode image, or read RGB data as YCbCr for
example. If omitted, the mode will be automatically determined from the object’s shape
and type.
Image.Image.get_child_images()¶
Image.Image.get_child_images() has been moved to
ImageFile.ImageFile.get_child_images(). The method uses an image’s file pointer,
and so child images could only be retrieved from an PIL.ImageFile.ImageFile
instance.
Image._show¶
Image._show has been removed. Use show() instead.
ImageCms.ImageCmsProfile.product_name and .product_info¶
ImageCms.ImageCmsProfile.product_name and the corresponding
.product_info attributes have been removed. They were set to None since Pillow
2.3.0.
Deprecations¶
IM image format¶
The IM image format has been deprecated and removal is planned in Pillow 15.0.0 (2028-10-15). If you are using this format and would like to continue doing so, open an issue about what other software uses it.
JpegImageFile.load_djpeg¶
JpegImageFile.load_djpeg has been deprecated, and will be removed in Pillow 14
(2027-10-15).
Use the built-in JPEG decoder instead, or call djpeg directly and decode the
resulting image with Pillow.
ImageQt align8to32()¶
ImageQt.align8to32() has been deprecated. This was an undocumented helper function
intended for internal use, so there is no replacement.
API changes¶
TODO¶
TODO
API additions¶
New resizing filters¶
Two new filters are available for resize() and
thumbnail(): Image.Resampling.MKS2013 and
Image.Resampling.MKS2021. These are versions of the Magic Kernel Sharp filter.
Added strip_namespaces argument to Image.getxmp()¶
getxmp() now accepts an optional keyword argument of
strip_namespaces. It is set to True by default, stripping each tag’s XML
namespace URI prefix as before. If set to False, each tag’s full
{namespace-uri}local-name form is kept instead, avoiding collisions between tags
that share a local name across different namespaces.
Added escape argument to PSDraw.text()¶
text() now accepts a keyword-only boolean argument,
escape. Set it to True to escape backslashes, for example in Windows paths.
The default, False, preserves the existing handling of backslashes and PostScript
escape sequences.
Other changes¶
Python 3.15¶
Pillow 12.3.0 had wheels built against Python 3.15 beta, available as a preview to help projects prepare for 3.15, and to ensure Pillow could be used immediately at the release of 3.15.0 final (2026-10-01, PEP 790).
Pillow 13.0.0 now officially supports Python 3.15.
PyPy 3.12¶
Wheels are now also built for PyPy 3.12, in addition to PyPy 3.11.
Faster JPEG 2000, TIFF, FreeType and LittleCMS in macOS and Linux wheels¶
Several of the libraries bundled in the macOS and Linux wheels were built without compiler optimisation. The Windows wheels were not affected.
These libraries are now compiled with -O2. Compared to Pillow 12.3.0, the wheels
decode JPEG 2000 images 2 to 3 times faster and encode them about twice as fast,
read and write LZW-compressed TIFF images about twice as fast,
render text with
ImageFontup to 3 times faster, andapply
ImageCmstransforms up to 3 times faster.
PNG, JPEG, WebP and AVIF are unaffected, as those libraries were already built with optimisation.
Wheels now use HarfBuzz for hinting¶
FreeType can use HarfBuzz to work out which glyphs a script covers, so that its auto-hinter can derive hinting “Blue Zones” for scripts such as Arabic.
Only the Windows wheels were actually built with this support.
The macOS wheels disabled HarfBuzz interoperability outright,
and the Linux wheels left it up to FreeType’s configure,
which in turn fell back to loading HarfBuzz by its unversioned name at
runtime.
Since the bundled copy of HarfBuzz is renamed when the wheel is audited and repaired
for distribution, that lookup only succeeded if a separate copy happened to be
installed on the system with the expected name (e.g. libharfbuzz.so.0).
All wheels are now linked against the HarfBuzz that Pillow ships, which may slightly change how text is rendered in scripts that rely on the auto-hinter.
Preserved transparency when padding or expanding images in ImageOps¶
pad() and expand() now preserve the
transparency value from the source image’s info dictionary. Transparent
pixels in L, P and RGB images previously became opaque when a border was added.
New palette colors are allocated without using reserved transparency entries.
Fixed ImageStat variance rounding¶
Fixed a floating-point rounding error that may have produced a negative variance in
var.
Fixed ImageChops.offset() for 16-bit images¶
offset() now works correctly for 16-bit-per-channel images.
Fixed histograms for masked LA, La and PA images¶
When histogram() was given a mask for a two-band image (LA,
La or PA), the second band was incorrectly derived from the first band of the input
image, rather than the alpha band.
Fixed combining GIF frames with missing durations¶
Saving identical consecutive GIF frames no longer raises a KeyError when an earlier
frame has no duration and a later frame does.
PNG palettes are no longer padded when saving with the bits argument¶
When saving a P mode image as a PNG with the bits argument, Pillow used to pad
the PLTE chunk with zeroes up to 2 ** bits entries. The PLTE chunk now only
contains as many entries as the image’s palette actually has, matching the behavior
already used when bits is not specified.
Restore image position if ImageSequence.all_frames() fails¶
If processing a frame in all_frames() raises an exception,
the given image will now seek back to its original frame.
Clean up TIFF encoders before closing their output files¶
TIFF saving now explicitly cleans up the libtiff encoder, including when saving raises an exception. Previously, delayed encoder destruction could access a closed file descriptor after it had been reused for another file, disturbing that file’s position or contents.
tobytes() also now explicitly cleans up its encoder on
both success and failure, rather than relying on object destruction.
Fixed reading PSD layers at the wrong file offset¶
When seeking to a layer of a PSD image, the pixel data was read from the wrong
position in the file, so seek() returned unrelated
bytes reinterpreted as image data instead of that layer’s actual content.