How to 'save as' an edited image (PNG) using a file dialog in Tkinter and Pil in Python [duplicate]

Question

I am trying to create an image editor that adds text to an image using Pillow. My problem is with saving my edited image so that the user can choose the name of the save file by opening up a save-as dialog. Looking at other questions and answers, I came up with this:

def onOpen(self):
        im = Image.open(askopenfilename())
        caption = simpledialog.askstring("Label", "What would you like the label on your picture to say?")
        fontsize = 15
        if im.mode != "RGB":
            im = im.convert("RGB")

        draw = ImageDraw.Draw(im)
        font = ImageFont.truetype("arial.ttf", fontsize)

        draw.text((0, 0),str(caption),(255,0,0),font=font)

        file = filedialog.asksaveasfile(mode='w', defaultextension=".png")
        if file:
            file.write(im)
            file.close()

However, I get the following error when running it:

Exception in Tkinter callback
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Renee\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35-32\lib\tkinter\__init__.py", line 1550, in __call__
    return self.func(*args)
  File "C:\Users\Renee\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35-32\tkinterguitest.py", line 52, in onOpen
    file.write(im)
TypeError: write() argument must be str, not Image

I know the issue is that write can only be used with strings, so is there a command, like file.write, but for images?

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-05 10:28:49Z

3

You should save the image through the save method that is in the Image object:

file = filedialog.asksaveasfile(mode='w', defaultextension=".png")
if file:
    im.save(file) # Saves the image to the input file name.

edited Jul 5, 2025 at 10:28

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 12, 2017 at 16:42

omri_saadon

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7 Comments

RenTheRoot Over a year ago

Thanks for the help! unfortunately i'm still receiving an error. This is the error: TypeError: write() argument must be str, not bytes which is strange, since I removed the write argument

RenTheRoot Over a year ago

specifically it says the error is on line 39, in onOpen im = Image.open(askopenfilename()) and line 52, in onOpen im.save(file) # saves the image to the input file name.

RenTheRoot Over a year ago

I just realized that the problem is in this line:

file = filedialog.asksaveasfile(mode='w', defaultextension=".png", filetypes=(("PNG file", "*.png"),("All Files", "*.*") ))

if i open it with wb instead of w it saves, but without the text i wanted on top of it

omri_saadon Over a year ago

@Renee , Instead of wb write a

RenTheRoot Over a year ago

It returned the same error code as it has been. I'm not sure if its significant but if i print the contents of file instead of trying to save it it gives me this: <_io.TextIOWrapper name='C:/Users/Renee/Pictures/testfile.png' mode='a' encoding='cp1252'>

|

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-05 10:30:28Z

I finally figured it out.

I ended up creating each component (the image and text) separately and then saving the final image as a composite. Here is the final code:

def onOpen(self):
    im = Image.open(askopenfilename())
    caption = simpledialog.askstring("Label", "What would you like the label on your picture to say?")
    fontsize = 30
    if im.mode != "RGBA":
        im = im.convert("RGBA")
    txt = Image.new('RGBA', im.size, (255, 255, 255, 0))

    draw = ImageDraw.Draw(txt)
    font = ImageFont.truetype("arial.ttf", fontsize)
    draw.text((0, 0), caption, (255, 0, 0), font=font)

    file = filedialog.asksaveasfile(mode='w', defaultextension=".png", filetypes=(("PNG file", "*.png"), ("All Files", "*.*")))
    if file:
        abs_path = os.path.abspath(file.name)
        out = Image.alpha_composite(im, txt)
        out.save(abs_path) # Saves the image to the input file name.

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