Creating an animated GIF with Pillow 6.2.0 seemingly doesn't append all images and ignores duration setting

Question

I am trying to create and save a GIF from a set of PNG files.

pics=[]
for plot_path in plot_paths:
    img = Image.open(plot_path)
    pics.append(img)
pics[0].save(save_dir+'/truestrain.gif', format='gif', save_all=True, append_images=pics[1:], duration=10, loop=0)

The output is a gif file, of the correct name, but only using the first PNG file, and 10 seconds long.

save_all=True should prompt it to use all of the images in append_images=pics[1:], but that doesn't seem to be working.

duration=10 should set the duration between frames as 10ms, seems to be interpreted as total time 10s (contrary to the Pillow documentation?)

I have seen a relevant previous post, which agrees with the method I am using, but still having problems (Saving an animated GIF in Pillow). I've also checked this follows the documentation (https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/3.1.x/handbook/image-file-formats.html).

I am currently running this from a Jupyter notebook in Anaconda distribution. — Joseph Langley, Mar 14 '20 at 12:55
Did you check your version of PILLOW, as [one of those answers](https://stackoverflow.com/a/54379281) suggested? — Jongware, Mar 14 '20 at 13:19
Yep, no issues with version as far as I can see. Edit: Version Is 6.2.0 — Joseph Langley, Mar 14 '20 at 13:22
Yep, I can test it using pics[2500] (For example), which displays the correct image in the console. — Joseph Langley, Mar 14 '20 at 13:52

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 14 '20 at 14:00

1

So it turns out, the GIF is being created correctly. Neither windows Photos or VLC was able to play it for some reason. I downloaded an alternative GIF viewer and the file is as expected.

answered Mar 14 '20 at 14:00

Joseph Langley

115
1
9

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 14 '20 at 14:03

Your code works for me with your version 6.2.0. I just tested different settings for duration and can definitely see the difference:

from PIL import Image
assert Image.__version__ == "6.2.0"
frames = [Image.open(f"frame_{i:0>3}.png") for i in range(44)]
for duration in [10, 100, 1000]:
    frames[0].save(f"result_{duration}.gif", format="gif", save_all=True, append_images=frames[1:], duration=duration, loop=0)

There is a limit to duration precision of the GIF format itself. But it should be one hundredth of a second, so your duration=10 should be fine.

Creating an animated GIF with Pillow 6.2.0 seemingly doesn't append all images and ignores duration setting

2 Answers2