To display photo information in an application, create the following photohandler.py script:

##!/usr/bin/python3 
#photohandler.py 
from PIL import Image 
from PIL import ExifTags 
import datetime 
import os 
 
#set module values 
previewsize=240,240 
defaultimagepreview="./preview.ppm" 
filedate_to_use="Exif DateTime" 
#Define expected inputs 
ARG_IMAGEFILE=1 
ARG_LENGTH=2 
     
class Photo: 
    def __init__(self,filename): 
        """Class constructor""" 
        self.filename=filename 
        self.filevalid=False 
        self.exifvalid=False 
        img=self.initImage() 
        if self.filevalid==True: 
            self.initExif(img) 
            self.initDates() 
     
    def initImage(self): 
        """opens the image and confirms if valid, returns Image""" 
        try: 
            img=Image.open(self.filename) 
            self.filevalid=True 
        except IOError: 
            print ("Target image not found/valid %s" % 
                   (self.filename)) 
            img=None 
            self.filevalid=False 
        return img 
         
    def initExif(self,image): 
        """gets any Exif data from the photo""" 
        try: 
            self.exif_info={ 
                ExifTags.TAGS[x]:y 
                for x,y in image._getexif().items() 
                if x in ExifTags.TAGS 
            } 
            self.exifvalid=True 
        except AttributeError: 
            print ("Image has no Exif Tags") 
            self.exifvalid=False 
 
             
    def initDates(self): 
        """determines the date the photo was taken""" 
        #Gather all the times available into YYYY-MM-DD format 
        self.filedates={} 
        if self.exifvalid: 
            #Get the date info from Exif info 
            exif_ids=["DateTime","DateTimeOriginal", 
                      "DateTimeDigitized"] 
            for id in exif_ids: 
                dateraw=self.exif_info[id] 
                self.filedates["Exif "+id]= 
                                dateraw[:10].replace(":","-") 
        modtimeraw = os.path.getmtime(self.filename) 
        self.filedates["File ModTime"]="%s" % 
            datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(modtimeraw).date() 
        createtimeraw = os.path.getctime(self.filename) 
        self.filedates["File CreateTime"]="%s" % 
            datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(createtimeraw).date() 
 
    def getDate(self): 
        """returns the date the image was taken""" 
        try: 
            date = self.filedates[filedate_to_use] 
        except KeyError: 
            print ("Exif Date not found") 
            date = self.filedates["File ModTime"] 
        return date 
         
    def previewPhoto(self): 
        """creates a thumbnail image suitable for tk to display""" 
        imageview=self.initImage() 
        imageview=imageview.convert('RGB') 
        imageview.thumbnail(previewsize,Image.ANTIALIAS) 
        imageview.save(defaultimagepreview,format='ppm') 
        return defaultimagepreview         

The previous code defines our Photo class; it is of no use to us until we run it in the There's more... section and in the next example.