Image blending is a common technique used in computer vision and image processing to smoothly combine two or more images. It allows you to create visually appealing effects by blending the colors and intensities of multiple images. In this blog post, we will explore how to perform image blending using the imageio library in Python.

What is imageio?

imageio is a popular library in Python used for reading and writing a wide range of image data, including different formats, such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and more. It provides a simple and intuitive interface to handle image I/O operations efficiently.

Image Blending using imageio

To perform image blending using imageio, we need to follow these steps:

1. Import the necessary libraries:

   import imageio
   import numpy as np
   

2. Read the input images using the imread() function:

   image1 = imageio.imread('image1.jpg')
   image2 = imageio.imread('image2.jpg')
   

3. Convert the images into floating point format for blending:

   image1 = image1.astype(np.float32)
   image2 = image2.astype(np.float32)
   

4. Normalize the images to the range [0, 1]:

   image1 /= 255.0
   image2 /= 255.0
   

5. Specify a blending weight or a blending factor between the two images:

   alpha = 0.5  # equal weight blending
   

6. Blend the images using the specified alpha value:

   blended_image = (1 - alpha) * image1 + alpha * image2
   

7. Save the blended image using the imwrite() function:

   imageio.imwrite('blended_image.jpg', (blended_image * 255).astype(np.uint8))
   

And that’s it! We have successfully blended two images using imageio. Adjusting the value of the blending weight alpha allows us to control the intensity of the blending effect.

Conclusion

Image blending is a powerful technique that can be used to create interesting and unique visual effects by combining multiple images. With the help of the imageio library and a few lines of code, we can easily perform image blending operations in Python.

Remember to import imageio and numpy first, read the input images, convert them to floating point format, normalize them, specify a blending weight, blend the images using the alpha value, and save the resulting blended image.

Start exploring image blending with imageio and unleash your creativity in creating stunning blended images!