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Hugo van Kemenade

@hugovk.dev

Using the new Tachyon profiler coming to Python 3.15 I profiled a one-liner to find a bottleneck, and sped up some 26-year-old code in @pillow.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy!

hugovk.dev/blog/2026/fa...

#Python #python315 #Tachyon #Pillow #PythonPillow #performance

Speeding up Pillow's open and save

hugovk.dev

January 28, 2026 at 4:41 PM

Hugo van Kemenade

@hugovk.dev

New #Pillow release!

🛞 Wheels for Python 3.15 beta
🧾 An SBOM in all the wheels
🚅 Performance improvements thanks to @akx
🔒 Security fixes
❌ No longer a wheel for experimental free-threaded 3.13

pillow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/re...

#Python #Pillow #PythonPillow #release #security #Python315 #SBOM

12.3.0 (2026-07-01)

Security: CVE 2026-59200: Prevent decompression bomb when parsing PDF: When parsing a PDF, PdfStream.decode() attempts to decompress data without any limit. A default maximum of ImageFile.SAFEBLOCK...

pillow.readthedocs.io

July 8, 2026 at 9:36 AM

Hugo van Kemenade

@hugovk.dev

We're deprecating the IM ("IFUNC Image Memory") plugin from @pillow.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy, with a two-year deprecation rather than the usual one-year.

pillow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/de...

More info: mastodon.social/@hugovk/1172...

#Python #Pillow #PythonPillow #deprecation

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 consid...

pillow.readthedocs.io

September 14, 2026 at 8:26 AM

Hugo van Kemenade

@hugovk.dev

Pillow 11.1.0 is out!

One of the cool updates is we're using zlib-ng 2.2.2 instead of zlib 1.2.8/1.3.1, which is more than twice as fast at saving PNGs at higher compression levels.

github.com/python-pillo...

#Pillow #Python #PythonPillow #release #zlib #zlibng #png

Graph of compression time.

For one test image, zlib-ng is much better than zlib.

For another test image, zlib-ng is noticeably better than zlib.

Graph of compressed file sizes.

At compression level 0: it's the same for all.
At compression level 1: zlib-ng is much worse than zlib.
At compression level 2-3: zlib-ng is slightly better than zlib.
At compression level 4-6: zlib-ng is even more slightly worse than zlib.
At compression level 7-9: about the same, zlib-ng ever so slightly better than zlib.

January 2, 2025 at 10:32 AM

Pillow

@pillow.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy

Pillow 12.2.0 has been released!

This has a bunch of security fixes, new APIs for wrapping text and converting fonts, plus performance and thread-safety improvements.

https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/releasenotes/12.2.0.html

#python #pillow #PythonPillow #release #security

12.2.0 (2026-04-01)
Security
Prevent FITS decompression bomb
When decompressing GZIP data from a FITS image, Pillow did not limit the amount of data being read, meaning that it was vulnerable to GZIP decompression bombs. This was introduced in Pillow 10.3.0.

The data being read is now limited to only the necessary amount.

Fix OOB write with invalid tile extents
Pillow 12.1.1 added improved checks for tile extents to prevent an OOB write from specially crafted PSD images in Pillow >= 10.3.0. However, these checks did not consider integer overflow. This has been corrected.

Prevent PDF parsing trailer infinite loop
When parsing a PDF, if a trailer refers to itself, or a more complex cyclic loop exists, then an infinite loop occurs. Pillow now keeps a record of which trailers it has already processed. PdfParser was added in Pillow 4.2.0.

Integer overflow when processing fonts
If a font advances for each glyph by an exceeding large amount, when Pillow keeps track of the current position, it may lead to an integer overflow. This has been fixed.

Heap buffer overflow with nested list coordinates
Passing nested lists as coordinates to APIs that accept coordinates such as ImagePath.Path, polygon() and line() could cause a heap buffer overflow, as nested lists were recursively unpacked beyond the allocated buffer. Coordinate lists are now validated to contain exactly two numeric coordinates. This was introduced in Pillow 11.2.1.

$API changes Error when encoding an empty image Attempting to encode an image with zero width or height would previously raise a SystemError. That has now been changed to a ValueError. This does not add any new errors. SGI, ICNS and ICO formats are still able to save (0, 0) images. API additions FontFile.to_imagefont() FontFile instances can now be directly converted to ImageFont instances: from PIL import PcfFontFile with open("Tests/fonts/10x20-ISO8859-1.pcf", "rb") as fp: pcffont = PcfFontFile.PcfFontFile(fp) pcffont.to_imagefont() <PIL.ImageFont.ImageFont object at 0x10457bb80> ImageText.Text.wrap ImageText.Text.wrap() has been added, to wrap text to fit within a given width: from PIL import ImageText text = ImageText.Text("Hello World!") text.wrap(50) print(text.text) # "Hello\nWorld!" or within a certain width and height, returning a new ImageText.Text instance if the text does not fit: text = ImageText.Text("Text does not fit within height") print(text.wrap(50, 25).text == " within height") print(text.text) # "Text does\nnot fit" or scaling, optionally with a font size limit: text.wrap(50, 15, "shrink") text.wrap(50, 15, ("shrink", 7)) text.wrap(58, 10, "grow") text.wrap(50, 50, ("grow", 12)) EXIF tag FrameRate The EXIF tag FrameRate has been added.$

Other changes
Support reading JPEG2000 images with CMYK palettes
JPEG2000 images with CMYK palettes can now be read. This is the first integration of CMYK palettes into Pillow.

Lazy plugin loading
When opening or saving an image, Pillow now lazily loads only the required plugin based on the file extension, instead of importing all plugins upfront. This makes open 2.3-15.6x faster and save 2.2-9x faster for common formats.

Thread safety for free-threaded Python
Critical sections are now used to protect FreeType font objects, improving thread safety when using fonts in the free-threaded build of Python.

April 1, 2026 at 4:47 PM

STACKFLAG

@stackflag.bsky.social

CVE-2026-54058 - pillow
An old version of Pillow, a Python library for image handling, could expose sensitive data from other processes when loading a specific type of image file. This has been…

Too many irrelevant or confusing CVEs? Use stackflag.com

#pillow #pythonpillow #pip #CVE #infosec

CVE-2026-54058: Pillow: Uncompressed Images Can Expose Sensitive Data

An old version of Pillow, a Python library for image handling, could expose sensitive data from other processes when loading a specific type of image file.

stackflag.com

July 20, 2026 at 9:46 PM

Pillow

@pillow.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy

Pillow 12.3.0 has been released!

This has a number of security fixes, performance improvements and Python 3.15 beta wheels.

https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/stable/releasenotes/12.3.0.html