Convert RGB to black OR white

Question

How would I take an RGB image in Python and convert it to black OR white? Not grayscale, I want each pixel to be either fully black (0, 0, 0) or fully white (255, 255, 255).

Answer 1

If you don't want to use cv methods for the segmentation and understand what you are doing, treat the RGB image as matrix.

image = mpimg.imread('image_example.png') # your image
R,G,B = image[:,:,0], image[:,:,1], image[:,:,2] # the 3 RGB channels
thresh = [100, 200, 50] # example of triple threshold

# First, create an array of 0's as default value
binary_output = np.zeros_like(R)
# then screen all pixels and change the array based on RGB threshold.
binary_output[(R < thresh[0]) & (G > thresh[1]) & (B < thresh[2])] = 255

The result is an array of 0's and 255's based on a triple condition.