pyscreenshot

pyscreenshot is a Python module that can be used to copy the contents of the screen to a PIL image memory or file. Replacement for the ImageGrab Module, which works on Windows only.

Usage

Example:

import pyscreenshot as ImageGrab

# fullscreen
im=ImageGrab.grab()
im.show()

# part of the screen
im=ImageGrab.grab(bbox=(10,10,500,500))
im.show()

# to file
ImageGrab.grab_to_file('im.png')

Installation

General

        install setuptools or pip
        install PIL
        install at least one backend
        install the program:

if you have setuptools installed:

# as root
easy_install pyscreenshot

if you have pip installed:

# as root
pip install pyscreenshot

Ubuntu

# one or more
sudo apt-get install scrot
sudo apt-get install imagemagick
sudo apt-get install python-gtk2
sudo apt-get install python-qt4
sudo apt-get install python-wxversion

# Python Imaging Library (required)
sudo apt-get install python-imaging

sudo apt-get install python-setuptools
sudo easy_install pyscreenshot

Uninstall

# as root
pip uninstall pyscreenshot

Features:

• Crossplatform wrapper
• Capturing the whole desktop
• Capturing an area
• saving to file or PIL image memory
• some backends are based on this discussion: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/69645/take-a-screenshot-via-a-python-script-linux
• Plugin based, it has wrappers for various backends:
• scrot
• ImageMagick
• PyGTK
• PIL (only on windows)
• PyQt4
• wxPython

Requirements:

• Python

Limitations:

• not implemented: Capturing an active window
• different backends generate slightly different images from the same desktop, this should be investigated
• ImageMagick creates blackbox on some systems
• PyGTK backend does not check $DISPLAY -> not working with Xvfb
• slow: 0.2s - 0.7s