PIL.UnidentifiedImageError: cannot identify image file (when reading 4 band .tif image)

Question

I am working with .tif images. I try to read a .tif image in order to access it later on pixel level and read some values. The error that I get when using Pillow is this:

File "/home/billy/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/PIL/Image.py", line 3008, in open
    raise UnidentifiedImageError(
PIL.UnidentifiedImageError: cannot identify image file '/home/billy/Desktop/UAV_image.tif

I searched for similar threads and I found this: Image.open() cannot identify image file - Python? where a guy suggests: I fixed it by using tifffile.imread instead. I did it read it with tifffile but when I try to use: pixel = im.load() I get error... Also I found this: what type of array is being returned by tiff.imread()? which didn't help me at all. Somewhere else I found the suggestion of upgrading the Pillow so I went from 7.0.0 to 9.0.1, nothing changed... the same problem. Does anyone have any idea how to read the 4-band .tif image and access it on pixel level? I don't need to display it somewhere just to read it...

Update:

Pillow 9.0.1
Python 3.8.10 (default, Nov 26 2021, 20:14:08)
       [GCC 9.3.0]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Python modules loaded from /home/billy/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/PIL
Binary modules loaded from /home/billy/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/PIL
--------------------------------------------------------------------
--- PIL CORE support ok, compiled for 9.0.1
--- TKINTER support ok, loaded 8.6
--- FREETYPE2 support ok, loaded 2.11.1
--- LITTLECMS2 support ok, loaded 2.13
--- WEBP support ok, loaded 1.2.2
--- WEBP Transparency support ok
--- WEBPMUX support ok
--- WEBP Animation support ok
--- JPEG support ok, compiled for libjpeg-turbo 2.1.2
--- OPENJPEG (JPEG2000) support ok, loaded 2.4.0
--- ZLIB (PNG/ZIP) support ok, loaded 1.2.11
--- LIBTIFF support ok, loaded 4.3.0
--- RAQM (Bidirectional Text) support ok, loaded 0.7.2, fribidi 1.0.8, harfbuzz 3.2.0
*** LIBIMAGEQUANT (Quantization method) support not installed
--- XCB (X protocol) support ok
--------------------------------------------------------------------
BLP
Extensions: .blp
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
BMP image/bmp
Extensions: .bmp
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
BUFR
Extensions: .bufr
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
CUR
Extensions: .cur
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
DCX
Extensions: .dcx
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
DDS
Extensions: .dds
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
DIB image/bmp
Extensions: .dib
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
EPS application/postscript
Extensions: .eps, .ps
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
FITS
Extensions: .fit, .fits
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
FLI
Extensions: .flc, .fli
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
FPX
Extensions: .fpx
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
FTEX
Extensions: .ftc, .ftu
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
GBR
Extensions: .gbr
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
GIF image/gif
Extensions: .gif
Features: open, save, save_all
--------------------------------------------------------------------
GRIB
Extensions: .grib
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
HDF5
Extensions: .h5, .hdf
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
ICNS image/icns
Extensions: .icns
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
ICO image/x-icon
Extensions: .ico
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
IM
Extensions: .im
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
IMT
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
IPTC
Extensions: .iim
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
JPEG image/jpeg
Extensions: .jfif, .jpe, .jpeg, .jpg
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
JPEG2000 image/jp2
Extensions: .j2c, .j2k, .jp2, .jpc, .jpf, .jpx
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
MCIDAS
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
MIC
Extensions: .mic
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
MPEG video/mpeg
Extensions: .mpeg, .mpg
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
MSP
Extensions: .msp
Features: open, save, decode
--------------------------------------------------------------------
PCD
Extensions: .pcd
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
PCX image/x-pcx
Extensions: .pcx
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
PIXAR
Extensions: .pxr
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
PNG image/png
Extensions: .apng, .png
Features: open, save, save_all
--------------------------------------------------------------------
PPM image/x-portable-anymap
Extensions: .pbm, .pgm, .pnm, .ppm
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
PSD image/vnd.adobe.photoshop
Extensions: .psd
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
SGI image/sgi
Extensions: .bw, .rgb, .rgba, .sgi
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
SPIDER
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
SUN
Extensions: .ras
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
TGA image/x-tga
Extensions: .icb, .tga, .vda, .vst
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
TIFF image/tiff
Extensions: .tif, .tiff
Features: open, save, save_all
--------------------------------------------------------------------
WEBP image/webp
Extensions: .webp
Features: open, save, save_all
--------------------------------------------------------------------
WMF
Extensions: .emf, .wmf
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
XBM image/xbm
Extensions: .xbm
Features: open, save
--------------------------------------------------------------------
XPM image/xpm
Extensions: .xpm
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------
XVTHUMB
Features: open
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Have a read here and click [edit] and paste in the outputs suggested https://stackoverflow.com/a/69077234/2836621 — Mark Setchell, Mar 12 '22 at 19:13

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 13 '22 at 14:09

3

Your image is 4-channels of 32-bits each. PIL doesn’t support such images - see Available Modes here.

I would suggest tifffile or OpenCV’s cv2.imread(…, cv2.IMREAD_UNCHANGED)

answered Mar 13 '22 at 14:09

Mark Setchell

191,897
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432

I read it with opencv, but I have difficulties accessing it on pixel level. Any ideas? I tried https://scikit-image.org/docs/dev/api/skimage.io.html and `zarr` from `tifffile` tutorial, but I cannot achieve it. – just_learning Mar 29 '22 at 12:36
1

I get this error: `TypeError: 'NoneType' object is not subscriptable` – just_learning Mar 29 '22 at 13:23

PIL.UnidentifiedImageError: cannot identify image file (when reading 4 band .tif image)

1 Answers1