How to install PIL or PILLOW on OS X Yosemite?

[Russell Owen]

On 2/15/15 8:17 PM, Ned Deily wrote:
> In article <dc937f79-b6bf-4060-8c71-2f4939aef7b6 at googlegroups.com>,
>   KP <kai.peters at gmail.com> wrote:
>> just upgraded my Mac Mini to Yosemite and have never dabbled in Python on
>> this OS.
>>
>> I see it has Python 2.7.6 installed.
>>
>> When I do something like
>>
>> from PIL import ImageFont, ImageDraw
>>
>> it tells me that it cannot find PIL
>>
>> How do I install this on Yosemite?
>
> Suggestions: stick with Pillow which is the current, maintained fork of
> the venerable PIL. Decide whether you want to use Python 3 or Python 2.
> PIL/Pillow installation on OS X is more involved than on some other
> platforms because it depends on a number of third-party C libraries that
> are not shipped by Apple in OS X so you need to find another source for
> them.  Rather than trying to build and install everything yourself or
> downloading a Pillow or PIL installer, I suggest picking one of the
> several fine distributors of open source packages for OS X and
> installing everything you need from them (including an up-to-date Python
> 2 or 3) and for your future needs beyond Pillow; options include
> Homebrew, MacPorts, Anaconda, Fink, and others.  Once you've installed
> the base framework for the package manager you choose, installing
> something like Pillow and all of its dependencies is often just a
> one-line command.  It may take a little while to get used to the quirks
> of the package manager you choose but, if you are going to use OS X for
> development with Python or many other languages, that time spent will be
> repaid many times over.

I agree that Pillow is preferable to PIL and that you may want to 
consider a 3rd party system.

If you are primarily interested in Python (and not unix-based C/C++ 
libraries and utilities then I suggest you try anaconda python.

Homebrew, MacPorts and Fink are mostly aimed at people who want to add 
missing unix libraries and tools.

If you want to stick with python.org python then a binary PIL installer 
is available here:
<http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/rowen/python/>
(I am not aware of any Pillow binaries).

-- Russell