Apply two changes, systematically:

(1) Use PyErr_NewException("module.class", NULL, NULL) to create the
    exception object.

(2) Remove all calls to Py_FatalError(); instead, return or
    ignore the errors -- the import code now checks PyErr_Occurred()
    after calling a module's init function, so it's no longer a
    fatal error for the initialization to fail.

Also did some small cleanups, e.g. removed unnecessary test for
"already initialized" from initfpectl(), and unified
initposix()/initnt().

I haven't checked this very thoroughly, so while the changes are
pretty trivial -- beware of untested code!
diff --git a/Modules/imageop.c b/Modules/imageop.c
index 007c83e..049908d 100644
--- a/Modules/imageop.c
+++ b/Modules/imageop.c
@@ -752,8 +752,7 @@
 	PyObject *m, *d;
 	m = Py_InitModule("imageop", imageop_methods);
 	d = PyModule_GetDict(m);
-	ImageopError = PyString_FromString("imageop.error");
-	if ( ImageopError == NULL ||
-	     PyDict_SetItemString(d,"error",ImageopError) )
-		Py_FatalError("can't define imageop.error");
+	ImageopError = PyErr_NewException("imageop.error", NULL, NULL);
+	if (ImageopError != NULL)
+		PyDict_SetItemString(d, "error", ImageopError);
 }