Tkinter.PhotoImage doesn't not support png image

Question

I am using Tkinter to write a GUI and want to display a png file in a Tkiner.Label. So I have some code like this:

self.vcode.img = PhotoImage(data=open('test.png').read(), format='png')
self.vcode.config(image=self.vcode.img)

This code runs correctly on my Linux machine. But when I run it on my windows machine, it fails. I also tested on several other machines (include windows and linux), it failed all the time.

The Traceback is:

Exception in Tkinter callback
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python27\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 1486, in __call__
    return self.func(*args)
  File "C:\Documents and Settings\St\client\GUI.py", line 150, in showrbox
    SignupBox(self, self.server)
  File "C:\Documents and Settings\St\client\GUI.py", line 197, in __init__
    self.refresh_vcode()
  File "C:\Documents and Settings\St\client\GUI.py", line 203, in refresh_vcode
    self.vcode.img = PhotoImage(data=open('test.png').read(), format='png')
  File "C:\Python27\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 3323, in __init__
    Image.__init__(self, 'photo', name, cnf, master, **kw)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 3279, in __init__
   self.tk.call(('image', 'create', imgtype, name,) + options)
TclError: image format "png" is not supported

If I delete format='png' in the source code, the traceback will become:

Exception in Tkinter callback
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python27\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 1486, in __call__
    return self.func(*args)
  File "C:\Documents and Settings\St\client\GUI.py", line 150, in showrbox
    SignupBox(self, self.server)
  File "C:\Documents and Settings\St\client\GUI.py", line 197, in __init__
    self.refresh_vcode()
  File "C:\Documents and Settings\St\client\GUI.py", line 203, in refresh_vcode
    self.vcode.img = PhotoImage(data=open('test.png').read())
  File "C:\Python27\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 3323, in __init__
    Image.__init__(self, 'photo', name, cnf, master, **kw)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 3279, in __init__
    self.tk.call(('image', 'create', imgtype, name,) + options)
TclError: couldn't recognize image data

So, what should I do to make it support png files?

Answer 1

PIL is now replaced by Pillow http://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/3.2.x/

solution:

from Tkinter import *
import PIL.Image
import PIL.ImageTk

root = Toplevel()

im = PIL.Image.open("photo.png")
photo = PIL.ImageTk.PhotoImage(im)

label = Label(root, image=photo)
label.image = photo  # keep a reference!
label.pack()

root.mainloop()

---

If PIL could not be found in code, you do need a pillow install:

pip install pillow

Answer 2

tkinter only supports 3 file formats off the bat which are GIF, PGM, and PPM. You will either need to convert the files to .GIF then load them (Far easier, but as jonrsharpe said, nothing will work without converting the file first) or you can port your program to Python 2.7 and use the Python Imaging Library (PIL) and its tkinter extensions to use a PNG image.

A link that you might find useful: http://effbot.org/tkinterbook/photoimage.htm