[Tutor] quick PIL question

[Terry Carroll]

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005, D. Hartley wrote:

> What does it mean if my image mode is "P"? In the documentation, it
> says "typical values are '1', 'L', 'RGB', 'CMYK.'" (it's a gif, if
> that's important)

That's really weird.  It does say that (in the description of im.mode, 
where you'd expect it).  But other parts of the doc refer to a "P" mode; 
see the descriptions of im.convert; im.putpalette; and the BMP format 
description.

Seems to be some sort of "palette" format.

Hey!  Look under "Concepts":

    The mode of an image defines the type and depth of a pixel in the 
    image. The current release supports the following standard modes:

     . . .

    - P (8-bit pixels, mapped to any other mode using a colour palette)

     . . . 

    Palette

    The palette mode ("P") uses a colour palette to define the actual
    colour for each pixel.



Not sure what that means, exactly, but it looks like im.palette will get 
the palette of a a P-mode image, and im.putpalette will change it.

I'm not sure how to interpret the palette once you have it, though.  The
description of the ImagePalette class is not too helpful.