Best way to write an image to a Django HttpResponse()

Question

I need to serve images securely to validated users only (i.e. they can't be served as static files). I currently have the following Python view in my Django project, but it seems inefficient. Any ideas for a better way?

def secureImage(request,imagePath):
    response = HttpResponse(mimetype="image/png")
    img = Image.open(imagePath)
    img.save(response,'png')
    return response

(Image is imported from PIL.)

Answer 1

Well, re-encoding is needed sometimes (i.e. applying an watermark over an image while keeping the original untouched), but for the most simple of cases you can use:

try:
    with open(valid_image, "rb") as f:
        return HttpResponse(f.read(), content_type="image/jpeg")
except IOError:
    red = Image.new('RGBA', (1, 1), (255,0,0,0))
    response = HttpResponse(content_type="image/jpeg")
    red.save(response, "JPEG")
    return response