How to work with HEIC image file types in Python

Question

The High Efficiency Image File (HEIF) format is the default when airdropping an image from an iPhone to a OSX device. I want to edit and modify these .HEIC files with Python.

I could modify phone settings to save as JPG by default but that doesn't really solve the problem of being able to work with the filetype from others. I still want to be able to process HEIC files for doing file conversion, extracting metadata, etc. (Example Use Case -- Geocoding)

Pillow

Here is the result of working with Python 3.7 and Pillow when trying to read a file of this type.

$ ipython
Python 3.7.0 (default, Oct  2 2018, 09:20:07)
Type 'copyright', 'credits' or 'license' for more information
IPython 7.2.0 -- An enhanced Interactive Python. Type '?' for help.

In [1]: from PIL import Image

In [2]: img = Image.open('IMG_2292.HEIC')
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
OSError                                   Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-2-fe47106ce80b> in <module>
----> 1 img = Image.open('IMG_2292.HEIC')

~/.env/py3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/PIL/Image.py in open(fp, mode)
   2685         warnings.warn(message)
   2686     raise IOError("cannot identify image file %r"
-> 2687                   % (filename if filename else fp))
   2688
   2689 #

OSError: cannot identify image file 'IMG_2292.HEIC'

It looks like support in python-pillow was requested (#2806) but there are licensing / patent issues preventing it there.

ImageMagick + Wand

It appears that ImageMagick may be an option. After doing a brew install imagemagick and pip install wand however I was unsuccessful.

$ ipython
Python 3.7.0 (default, Oct  2 2018, 09:20:07)
Type 'copyright', 'credits' or 'license' for more information
IPython 7.2.0 -- An enhanced Interactive Python. Type '?' for help.

In [1]: from wand.image import Image

In [2]: with Image(filename='img.jpg') as img:
   ...:     print(img.size)
   ...:
(4032, 3024)

In [3]: with Image(filename='img.HEIC') as img:
   ...:     print(img.size)
   ...:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
MissingDelegateError                      Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-3-9d6f58c40f95> in <module>
----> 1 with Image(filename='ces2.HEIC') as img:
      2     print(img.size)
      3

~/.env/py3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/wand/image.py in __init__(self, image, blob, file, filename, format, width, height, depth, background, resolution, pseudo)
   4603                     self.read(blob=blob, resolution=resolution)
   4604                 elif filename is not None:
-> 4605                     self.read(filename=filename, resolution=resolution)
   4606                 # clear the wand format, otherwise any subsequent call to
   4607                 # MagickGetImageBlob will silently change the image to this

~/.env/py3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/wand/image.py in read(self, file, filename, blob, resolution)
   4894             r = library.MagickReadImage(self.wand, filename)
   4895         if not r:
-> 4896             self.raise_exception()
   4897
   4898     def save(self, file=None, filename=None):

~/.env/py3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/wand/resource.py in raise_exception(self, stacklevel)
    220             warnings.warn(e, stacklevel=stacklevel + 1)
    221         elif isinstance(e, Exception):
--> 222             raise e
    223
    224     def __enter__(self):

MissingDelegateError: no decode delegate for this image format `HEIC' @ error/constitute.c/ReadImage/556

Any other alternatives available to do a conversion programmatically?

Similarly Sindre Sorhus has an excellent HEIC Converter to generate JPEG or PNG images but not the flexibility I'm looking for. https://sindresorhus.com/heic-converter — j12y, Jan 28 '19 at 05:31
[ExifTool](https://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/) provides a CLI for working with image metadata and supports HEIF. Should be easy to wrap in Python. — buzjwa, May 10 '19 at 09:20
This may help... https://stackoverflow.com/a/54558699/2836621 — Mark Setchell, Feb 01 '20 at 14:42

danial · Answer 1 · 2019-07-10T03:13:28.690

19

You guys should check out this library, it's a Python 3 wrapper to the libheif library, it should serve your purpose of file conversion, extracting metadata:

https://github.com/david-poirier-csn/pyheif

https://pypi.org/project/pyheif/

Example usage:

 import whatimage
 import pyheif
 from PIL import Image


 def decodeImage(bytesIo):

    fmt = whatimage.identify_image(bytesIo)
    if fmt in ['heic', 'avif']:
         i = pyheif.read_heif(bytesIo)

         # Extract metadata etc
         for metadata in i.metadata or []:
             if metadata['type']=='Exif':
                 # do whatever

         # Convert to other file format like jpeg
         s = io.BytesIO()
         pi = Image.frombytes(
                mode=i.mode, size=i.size, data=i.data)

         pi.save(s, format="jpeg")

  ...

edited Jul 10 '19 at 03:13

answered Jul 09 '19 at 06:12

danial

419
2
10
19

1

My experience with `pyheif` is that it successfully reads HEIC files, but I don't understand how or why `Image.frombytes()` is supposed to work in the code above. Wouldn't that require PIL to understand HEIF? In any event, what I get is a badly corrupted JPG file when I run it. – Norm Oct 19 '19 at 14:38
1

`read_heif` required actual data, so the line should actually be: `pyheif.read_heif(bytesIo.read())` – Cigogne Eveillée Oct 22 '19 at 19:43
2

can you give some examples of the `do whatever`? `metadata['data']` here appears to be of type `bytes`. But when I attempt to: `metadata['data'].decode('utf-8'))`, I see: `UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x86 in position 27: invalid start byte` – user9074332 Jan 11 '20 at 01:24
3

fwiw, I tried to install `pyheif` on windows and ran into [this](https://github.com/david-poirier-csn/pyheif/issues/2) issue. Turns out `pyheif` is not compatible with Windows. – Zhang18 May 25 '20 at 19:59

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 18 '20 at 20:28

Adding to the answer by danial, i just had to modify the byte array slighly to get a valid datastream for further work. The first 6 bytes are 'Exif\x00\x00' .. dropping these will give you a raw format that you can pipe into any image processing tool.

import pyheif
import PIL
import exifread

def read_heic(path: str):
    with open(path, 'rb') as file:
        image = pyheif.read_heif(file)
        for metadata in image.metadata or []:
            if metadata['type'] == 'Exif':
                fstream = io.BytesIO(metadata['data'][6:])

    # now just convert to jpeg
    pi = PIL.Image.open(fstream)
    pi.save("file.jpg", "JPEG")

    # or do EXIF processing with exifread
    tags = exifread.process_file(fstream)

At least this worked for me.

Using your code, when I pass an HEIC file path I get `PIL.UnidentifiedImageError: cannot identify image file <_io.bytesio at="" object="">`. — Josh Clark, Dec 26 '20 at 05:55

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 29 '20 at 20:08

I was quite successful with Wand package : Install Wand: https://docs.wand-py.org/en/0.6.4/ Code for conversion:

   from wand.image import Image
   import os

   SourceFolder="K:/HeicFolder"
   TargetFolder="K:/JpgFolder"

   for file in os.listdir(SourceFolder):
      SourceFile=SourceFolder + "/" + file
      TargetFile=TargetFolder + "/" + file.replace(".HEIC",".JPG")
    
      img=Image(filename=SourceFile)
      img.format='jpg'
      img.save(filename=TargetFile)
      img.close()

It seems ImageMagick (low level lib used by Wand) does not support heic delegate in some distro's package manager out of the box (eg: Centos 8). — Rodriguez, Feb 27 '21 at 00:36

PidePython · Answer 4 · 2020-04-28T19:47:26.303

This will do go get the exif data from the heic file

import pyheif
import exifread
import io

heif_file = pyheif.read_heif("file.heic")

for metadata in heif_file.metadata:

    if metadata['type'] == 'Exif':
        fstream = io.BytesIO(metadata['data'][6:])

    exifdata = exifread.process_file(fstream,details=False)

    # example to get device model from heic file
    model = str(exifdata.get("Image Model"))
    print(model)

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 01 '19 at 23:08

0

I am facing the exact same problem as you, wanting a CLI solution. Doing some further research, it seems ImageMagick requires the libheif delegate library. The libheif library itself seems to have some dependencies as well.

I have not had success in getting any of those to work as well, but will continue trying. I suggest you check if those dependencies are available to your configuration.

answered Jul 01 '19 at 23:08

Tropicalrambler

350
5
13

1

Thank you for this Mark, it will prove useful. – Tropicalrambler Feb 03 '20 at 18:28

score 0 · Answer 6 · edited Dec 27 '20 at 13:28

0

Simple solution after going over multiple responses from people.
Please install whatimage, pyheif and PIL libraries before running this code.

[NOTE] : I used this command for install.

python3 -m pip install Pillow

Also using linux was lot easier to install all these libraries. I recommend WSL for windows.

code

import whatimage
import pyheif
from PIL import Image
import os

def decodeImage(bytesIo, index):
    with open(bytesIo, 'rb') as f:
    data = f.read()
    fmt = whatimage.identify_image(data)
    if fmt in ['heic', 'avif']:
    i = pyheif.read_heif(data)
    pi = Image.frombytes(mode=i.mode, size=i.size, data=i.data)
    pi.save("new" + str(index) + ".jpg", format="jpeg")

# For my use I had my python file inside the same folder as the heic files
source = "./"

for index,file in enumerate(os.listdir(source)):
    decodeImage(file, index)

edited Dec 27 '20 at 13:28

myeongkil kim

2,020
4
12
19

answered Dec 27 '20 at 03:15

d1p3

11
1

Please explain what your code does and how it does it. – M-Chen-3 Dec 27 '20 at 03:44
1

This is a simple solution using multiple libraries. It basically opens each .heic file inside the same folder as the ".py" file and converts to jpg. Did you mean code explanation? – d1p3 Dec 28 '20 at 20:18
Yes, every answer should explain how the code works. – M-Chen-3 Dec 28 '20 at 20:19

How to work with HEIC image file types in Python

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