[python] Showing an image from console in Python

What is the easiest way to show a .jpg or .gif image from Python console?

I've got a Python console program that is checking a data set which contains links to images stored locally. How should I write the script so that it would display images pop-up graphical windows?

Since you are probably running Windows (from looking at your tags), this would be the easiest way to open and show an image file from the console without installing extra stuff like PIL.

import os
os.system('start pic.png')

If you would like to show it in a new window, you could use Tkinter + PIL library, like so:

import tkinter as tk
from PIL import ImageTk, Image

def show_imge(path):
    image_window = tk.Tk()
    img = ImageTk.PhotoImage(Image.open(path))
    panel = tk.Label(image_window, image=img)
    panel.pack(side="bottom", fill="both", expand="yes")
    image_window.mainloop()

This is a modified example that can be found all over the web.

Why not just display it in the user's web browser?

In a new window using Pillow/PIL

Install Pillow (or PIL), e.g.:

$ pip install pillow

Now you can

from PIL import Image
with Image.open('path/to/file.jpg') as img:
    img.show()

Using native apps

Other common alternatives include running xdg-open or starting the browser with the image path:

import webbrowser
webbrowser.open('path/to/file.jpg')

Inline a Linux console

If you really want to show the image inline in the console and not as a new window, you may do that but only in a Linux console using fbi see ask Ubuntu or else use ASCII-art like CACA.

You can also using the Python module Ipython, which in addition to displaying an image in the Spyder console can embed images in Jupyter notebook. In Spyder, the image will be displayed in full size, not scaled to fit the console.

from IPython.display import Image, display
display(Image(filename="mypic.png"))

In Xterm-compatible terminals, you can show the image directly in the terminal. See my answer to "PPM image to ASCII art in Python"

I made a simple tool that will display an image given a filename or image object or url.
It's crude, but it'll do in a hurry.

Installation:

 $ pip install simple-imshow

Usage:

from simshow import simshow
simshow('some_local_file.jpg')  # display from local file
simshow('http://mathandy.com/escher_sphere.png')  # display from url

Or simply execute the image through the shell, as in

import subprocess
subprocess.call([ fname ], shell=True)

and whatever program is installed to handle images will be launched.

You cannot display images in a console window. You need a graphical toolkit such as Tkinter, PyGTK, PyQt, PyKDE, wxPython, PyObjC or PyFLTK. There are plenty of tutorial how to create siomple windows and loading images iun python.