How can I convert an RGB image into grayscale in Python?

You can also use scikit-image, which provides some functions to convert an image in ndarray, like rgb2gray.

from skimage import color
from skimage import io

img = color.rgb2gray(io.imread('image.png'))

Notes: The weights used in this conversion are calibrated for contemporary CRT phosphors: Y = 0.2125 R + 0.7154 G + 0.0721 B

Alternatively, you can read image in grayscale by:

from skimage import io
img = io.imread('image.png', as_gray=True)

Three of the suggested methods were tested for speed with 1000 RGBA PNG images (224 x 256 pixels) running with Python 3.5 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xeon E5 2670 with SSD).

Average run times

pil : 1.037 seconds

scipy: 1.040 seconds

sk : 2.120 seconds

PIL and SciPy gave identical numpy arrays (ranging from 0 to 255). SkImage gives arrays from 0 to 1. In addition the colors are converted slightly different, see the example from the CUB-200 dataset.

SkImage:

PIL :

SciPy :

Original:

Diff :

Code

1. Performance

   run_times = dict(sk=list(), pil=list(), scipy=list())
   for t in range(100):
       start_time = time.time()
       for i in range(1000):
           z = random.choice(filenames_png)
           img = skimage.color.rgb2gray(skimage.io.imread(z))
       run_times['sk'].append(time.time() - start_time)
   
   start_time = time.time()
   for i in range(1000):
       z = random.choice(filenames_png)
       img = np.array(Image.open(z).convert('L'))
   run_times['pil'].append(time.time() - start_time)
   
   start_time = time.time()
   for i in range(1000):
       z = random.choice(filenames_png)
       img = scipy.ndimage.imread(z, mode='L')
   run_times['scipy'].append(time.time() - start_time)
   
   
   for k, v in run_times.items():
       print('{:5}: {:0.3f} seconds'.format(k, sum(v) / len(v)))
   

2. Output

   z = 'Cardinal_0007_3025810472.jpg'
   img1 = skimage.color.rgb2gray(skimage.io.imread(z)) * 255
   IPython.display.display(PIL.Image.fromarray(img1).convert('RGB'))
   img2 = np.array(Image.open(z).convert('L'))
   IPython.display.display(PIL.Image.fromarray(img2))
   img3 = scipy.ndimage.imread(z, mode='L')
   IPython.display.display(PIL.Image.fromarray(img3))
   

3. Comparison

   img_diff = np.ndarray(shape=img1.shape, dtype='float32')
   img_diff.fill(128)
   img_diff += (img1 - img3)
   img_diff -= img_diff.min()
   img_diff *= (255/img_diff.max())
   IPython.display.display(PIL.Image.fromarray(img_diff).convert('RGB'))
   

4. Imports

   import skimage.color
   import skimage.io
   import random
   import time
   from PIL import Image
   import numpy as np
   import scipy.ndimage
   import IPython.display
   

5. Versions

   skimage.version
   0.13.0
   scipy.version
   0.19.1
   np.version
   1.13.1
   

You can always read the image file as grayscale right from the beginning using imread from OpenCV:

img = cv2.imread('messi5.jpg', 0)

Furthermore, in case you want to read the image as RGB, do some processing and then convert to Gray Scale you could use cvtcolor from OpenCV:

gray_image = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)

How about doing it with Pillow:

from PIL import Image
img = Image.open('image.png').convert('L')
img.save('greyscale.png')

---

If an alpha (transparency) channel is present in the input image and should be preserved, use mode LA:

img = Image.open('image.png').convert('LA')

---

Using matplotlib and the formula

Y' = 0.2989 R + 0.5870 G + 0.1140 B 

you could do:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.image as mpimg

def rgb2gray(rgb):
    return np.dot(rgb[...,:3], [0.2989, 0.5870, 0.1140])

img = mpimg.imread('image.png')     
gray = rgb2gray(img)    
plt.imshow(gray, cmap=plt.get_cmap('gray'), vmin=0, vmax=1)
plt.show()