Python mac matplotlib imread error

Question

I'm trying to read a jpg image using matplotlib's pyplot.

This is the error I get when using the imread command:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/rugheid/Dropbox/Documents/Rugen Dropbox/School/Universiteit/3e jaar/P&O/Git Repository/backend/image_processing/image_processor.py", line 27, in <module>
img = pyplot.imread(io.BytesIO(jpg_bytes), format='jpg')
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/matplotlib/pyplot.py", line 2177, in imread
return _imread(*args, **kwargs)
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/matplotlib/image.py", line 1242, in imread
im = pilread(fname)
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/matplotlib/image.py", line 1226, in pilread
return pil_to_array(image)
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/matplotlib/image.py", line 1328, in pil_to_array
x = toarray(im)
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/matplotlib/image.py", line 1313, in toarray
x_str = im.tostring('raw', im.mode)
File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/PIL/Image.py", line 695, in tostring
"Please call tobytes() instead.")
Exception: tostring() has been removed. Please call tobytes() instead.

It seems it's calling something from PIL that has been removed... Can I change matplotlib to use Pillow instead of PIL? Or can I do something else? I have the most recent version of matplotlib installed.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You should probably just use pillow directly, since matplotlib just falls back to PIL anyway for anything other than PNG files. From the documentation :

matplotlib can only read PNGs natively, but if PIL is installed, it will use it to load the image and return an array (if possible)

To load a JPG with pillow :

from PIL import Image
im = Image.open('myimage.jpg')

This way you cut out the middle man and control the image loading directly.