Python 2.7.3 . . . Write .jpg/.png image file?

Question

So I have a .jpg/.png and I opened it up in Text Edit which I provided below:

Is there anyway I can save these exotic symbols to a string in Python to later write that to a file to produce an image?

I tried to import a string that had the beta symbol in it and I got an error that send Non-ASCII so I am assuming the same would happen for this.

Is there anyway to get around this problem?

Thanks

Portion of Image.png in Text Edit:

Answer 1

What you are looking at in your text edit is a binary file, trying to represent it all in human readable characters.

Just open the file as binary in python:

with open('picture.png', 'rb') as f:
    data = f.read()

with open('picture_out.png', 'wb') as f:
    f.write(data)

Answer 2

You can read to file in binary format by providing the rb flag to open and then just save what ever comes out of the file into a text file. I don't know what the point of this would be but there you go

# read in image data
fh = open('test.png','rb')
data = fh.read()
fh.close()

# write gobbledigoock to text file
fh = open('test.txt','w')
fh.write(data)
fh.close
fh.close()