How to Display an Image With Matplotlib Python

This tutorial discusses how you can use the matplotlib.pyplot.imshow() method to display images using Matplotlib.

matplotlib.pyplot.imshow() Method

matplotlib.pyplot.imshow() displays figures in Matplotlib.

matplotlib.pyplot.imshow() Syntax

matplotlib.pyplot.imshow(X,
                         cmap=None,
                         norm=None,
                         aspect=None,
                         interpolation=None,
                         alpha=None,
                         vmin=None,
                         vmax=None,
                         origin=None,
                         extent=None, *,
                         filternorm=True,
                         filterrad=4.0,
                         resample=None,
                         url=None,
                         data=None,
                         **kwargs)

Here, X represents an array-like structure of the image displayed or the PIL Image.

Examples: Display an Image With Matplotlib Python Using imshow()

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.image as img

image = img.imread("lena.jpg")
plt.imshow(image)
plt.show()

Output:

It reads the image lena.jpg from the current working directory using the imread() method from the matplotlib.image module and then finally displays the image using the imshow() method. You must call the show() method after imshow() to view the picture if you’re not using IPython Notebooks; the show() method will launch a separate window of the image.

Examples: Display a PIL Image With Matplotlib Python Using imshow()

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from PIL import Image

image = Image.open("lena.jpg")
plt.imshow(image)
plt.show()

Output:

It displays the PIL image. We read it using the open() method from the Image module of PIL. We can also directly display the image using PIL in a much simpler way.

from PIL import Image

img = Image.open("lena.jpg")
img.show()