pillow-heif

Python bindings to libheif for working with HEIF images and an add-on for Pillow.

Features:

Decoding of 8, 10, 12 bit HEIC and AVIF files.
Encoding of 8, 10, 12 bit HEIC and AVIF files.
EXIF, XMP, IPTC read & write support.
Support of multiple images in one file and a PrimaryImage attribute.
HEIF thumbnails support.
Adding all this features to Pillow in one line of code as a plugin.

Note: Here is a light version pi-heif of this project without encoding capabilities.

Install

python3 -m pip install -U pip
python3 -m pip install pillow-heif

Example of use as a Pillow plugin

from PIL import Image
from pillow_heif import register_heif_opener

register_heif_opener()

im = Image.open("images/input.heic")  # do whatever need with a Pillow image
im = im.rotate(13)
im.save(f"rotated_image.heic", quality=90)

16 bit PNG to 10 bit HEIF using OpenCV

import cv2
import pillow_heif

cv_img = cv2.imread("images/jpeg_gif_png/RGBA_16.png", cv2.IMREAD_UNCHANGED)
heif_file = pillow_heif.from_bytes(
    mode="BGRA;16",
    size=(cv_img.shape[1], cv_img.shape[0]),
    data=bytes(cv_img)
)
heif_file.save("RGBA_10bit.heic", quality=-1)

8/10/12 bit HEIF to 16 bit PNG using OpenCV

import numpy as np
import cv2
import pillow_heif

heif_file = pillow_heif.open_heif("images/rgb12.heif", convert_hdr_to_8bit=False)
heif_file.convert_to("BGRA;16" if heif_file.has_alpha else "BGR;16")
np_array = np.asarray(heif_file)
cv2.imwrite("rgb16.png", np_array)

Accessing decoded image data

import pillow_heif

if pillow_heif.is_supported("images/rgb10.heif"):
    heif_file = pillow_heif.open_heif("images/rgb10.heif", convert_hdr_to_8bit=False)
    print("image mode:", heif_file.mode)
    print("image data length:", len(heif_file.data))
    print("image data stride:", heif_file.stride)
    heif_file.convert_to("RGB;16")  # convert 10 bit image to RGB 16 bit.
    print("image mode:", heif_file.mode)

Get decoded image data as a Numpy array

import numpy as np
import pillow_heif

if pillow_heif.is_supported("input.heic"):
    heif_file = pillow_heif.open_heif("input.heic")
    np_array = np.asarray(heif_file)

Adding & Removing thumbnails

import pillow_heif

if pillow_heif.is_supported("input.heic"):
    heif_file = pillow_heif.open_heif("input.heic")
    pillow_heif.add_thumbnails(heif_file, [768, 512, 256])  # add three new thumbnail boxes.
    heif_file.save("output_with_thumbnails.heic")
    heif_file.thumbnails.clear()               # clear list with thumbnails.
    heif_file.save("output_without_thumbnails.heic")

(Pillow)Adding & Removing thumbnails

from PIL import Image
import pillow_heif

pillow_heif.register_heif_opener()

im = Image.open("input.heic")
pillow_heif.add_thumbnails(im, [768, 512, 256])  # add three new thumbnail boxes.
im.save("output_with_thumbnails.heic")
im.info["thumbnails"].clear()               # clear list with thumbnails.
im.save("output_without_thumbnails.heic")

Using thumbnails when they are present in a file

import pillow_heif

if pillow_heif.is_supported("input.heic"):
    heif_file = pillow_heif.open_heif("input.heic")
    for img in heif_file:
        img = pillow_heif.thumbnail(img)
        print(img)  # This will be a thumbnail or if thumbnail is not avalaible then an original.

(Pillow)Using thumbnails when they are present in a file

from PIL import Image, ImageSequence
import pillow_heif

pillow_heif.register_heif_opener()

pil_img = Image.open("input.heic")
for img in ImageSequence.Iterator(pil_img):
    img = pillow_heif.thumbnail(img)
    print(img)  # This will be a thumbnail or if thumbnail is not avalaible then an original.

AVIF support

Working with the AVIF files as the same as with the HEIC files. Just use a separate function to register plugin:

import pillow_heif

pillow_heif.register_avif_opener()

More Information

Wheels

*Wheels table*	macOS Intel	macOS Silicon	Windows 64bit	musllinux*	manylinux*
CPython 3.6	N/A	N/A	N/A	✅	✅
CPython 3.7	✅	N/A	✅	✅	✅
CPython 3.8	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
CPython 3.9	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
CPython 3.10	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
CPython 3.11	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
PyPy 3.7 v7.3	✅	N/A	N/A	N/A	✅
PyPy 3.8 v7.3	✅	N/A	N/A	N/A	✅

* i686, x86_64, aarch64 wheels.

For ARMv7(armv7l) wheels are present for Debian 10+(Ubuntu 20.04+) and Alpine 14+. They supports only decoding and builds without x265 encoder.

radarhere / pillow_heif