How to display an image/screenshot in a Python Tkinter window without saving it?

Tkinter is a standard Python library used to create GUI-based applications. To display images without saving them to disk, we use the PIL (Pillow) library along with Tkinter's PhotoImage class.

Let us create an application that takes a screenshot and displays it in a new window without saving the image file. We can achieve this by following these steps −

• Import the required libraries

• Create a button to trigger the screenshot

• Define a function to capture the screenshot

• Specify the coordinates and region for the screenshot

• Create a Toplevel window and display the image using a Label widget

• Keep a reference to prevent garbage collection

Example

Here's how to capture and display a screenshot in Tkinter without saving it ?

# Import the required libraries
from tkinter import *
import pyautogui
from PIL import ImageTk, Image

# Create an instance of tkinter frame or window
win = Tk()

# Set the size of the window
win.geometry("700x350")
win.title("Screenshot Demo")

# Define a function to take the screenshot
def take_screenshot():
    x = 500
    y = 500
    # Take the screenshot in the given coords
    im1 = pyautogui.screenshot(region=(x, y, 700, 300))
    
    # Create a toplevel window
    top = Toplevel(win)
    top.title("Screenshot Preview")
    
    # Convert PIL image to PhotoImage
    im1 = ImageTk.PhotoImage(im1)
    
    # Add the image in the label widget
    image1 = Label(top, image=im1)
    image1.image = im1  # Keep a reference to prevent garbage collection
    image1.pack()

# Create button to take screenshot
Button(win, text='Take ScreenShot', command=take_screenshot, font=('Arial', 12)).pack(padx=10, pady=10)

win.mainloop()

How It Works

The pyautogui.screenshot() function captures a specific region of the screen and returns a PIL Image object. The ImageTk.PhotoImage() converts this PIL image into a format that Tkinter can display. The crucial step is keeping a reference (image1.image = im1) to prevent Python's garbage collector from removing the image from memory.

Key Points

• No file saving: The image exists only in memory

• Region parameter: (x, y, width, height) defines the capture area

• Reference keeping: Essential to prevent image disappearing

• Toplevel window: Creates a separate window for image display

Alternative: Display Any Image from Memory

You can also display images loaded from URLs or created programmatically ?

from tkinter import *
from PIL import ImageTk, Image
import requests
from io import BytesIO

def display_web_image():
    # Load image from URL (example - replace with actual URL)
    response = requests.get("https://example.com/image.jpg")
    img = Image.open(BytesIO(response.content))
    
    # Display in Tkinter
    top = Toplevel(root)
    photo = ImageTk.PhotoImage(img)
    label = Label(top, image=photo)
    label.image = photo
    label.pack()

Output

When you run the code, it displays a window with a button. Clicking "Take ScreenShot" captures a 700×300 pixel region starting from coordinates (500, 500) and displays it in a new window without saving any files to disk.

The captured screenshot appears in a separate window immediately ?

Conclusion

Use ImageTk.PhotoImage() to display PIL images in Tkinter without saving to disk. Always keep a reference to the image object to prevent garbage collection and ensure the image remains visible.