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I would like to know why I should or shouldn't use a matplotlib image over a PIL image. I know that matplotlib uses PIL to load any image that is not a PNG, but what is the advantage in having it in a numpy array over the PIL backend representation?

Erotemic
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The PIL API includes function for performing a wide range of image manipulations. But of course, it does not provide a function for all conceivable operations. Numpy is useful when you have a mathematical operation to perform on the image which is not built into the PIL API. PIL has a way of altering pixels one-by-one but because if its reliance on Python loops it can be a very slow way to manipulate a large image (or many images).

Numpy math is relatively fast and it has an expressive syntax which can make coding new image manipulations easier. Moreover, scipy has many additional image manipulating functions which can be applied to numpy arrays.

Here are a few examples:

Community
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unutbu
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