Image Processing in Python

Pillow is the standard library for opening, converting, resizing and drawing on images, and most other Python imaging tools accept or return Pillow images. scikit-image works on NumPy arrays and provides scientific algorithms such as segmentation, filtering, feature detection and measurement. pyvips binds libvips, which processes images in a streaming way with low memory use, so it is a strong choice for very large images and bulk thumbnailing. Wand binds ImageMagick for its wide format support and operations.

rembg removes image backgrounds using pretrained models. Thumbor is an image service that crops and resizes on demand from URLs, with smart cropping based on detected features. qrcode and python-barcode generate QR codes and barcodes without heavy dependencies. For object detection and OCR, see the Computer Vision section. For a web app that resizes uploads, Pillow is usually enough; switch to pyvips or a service like Thumbor when image sizes or volume make memory use and latency a problem.