Python Imaging Library (PIL) is a free library for the Python programming language that adds support for opening, manipulating, and saving many different image file formats. It’s an essential tool in image processing tasks, providing capabilities such as reading and writing images in various formats, resizing, cropping, rotating, drawing on images, and converting between file types.
Typical applications of PIL include web development where it can be used to generate dynamic graphics, scientific research for image analysis, game development for texture mapping or sprite animations, and even in machine learning for preprocessing image data. For instance, in facial recognition systems, PIL might be used to standardize input images to a specific size or format before they’re fed into a neural network.
