How to show PIL Image in ipython notebook

Use IPython display to render PIL images in a notebook.

from PIL import Image               # to load images
from IPython.display import display # to display images

pil_im = Image.open('path/to/image.jpg')
display(pil_im)

Updated 2021/11/17

When using PIL/Pillow, Jupyter Notebooks now have a display built-in that will show the image directly, with no extra fuss.

display(pil_im)

Jupyter will also show the image if it is simply the last line in a cell (this has changed since the original post). Thanks to answers from @Dean and @Prabhat for pointing this out.

Other Methods

From File

You can also use IPython's display module to load the image. You can read more from the doc.

from IPython.display import Image 
pil_img = Image(filename='data/empire.jpg')
display(pil_img)

From PIL.Image Object

As OP's requirement is to use PIL, if you want to show inline image, you can use matplotlib.pyplot.imshow with numpy.asarray like this too:

from matplotlib.pyplot import imshow
import numpy as np
from PIL import Image

%matplotlib inline
pil_im = Image.open('data/empire.jpg', 'r')
imshow(np.asarray(pil_im))

If you only require a preview rather than an inline, you may just use show like this:

pil_im = Image.open('data/empire.jpg', 'r')
pil_im.show()