python imaging library: Can I simply fill my image with one color?

Question

I googled, checked the documentation of PIL library and much more, but I couldn't find the answer to my simple question: how can I fill an existing image with a desired color?

(I am using from PIL import Image and from PIL import ImageDraw)

This command creates a new image filled with a desired color

image = Image.new("RGB", (self.width, self.height), (200, 200, 200))

But I would like to reuse the same image without the need of calling "new" every time

Answer 1

Have you tried:

image.paste(color, box)

where box can be a 2-tuple giving the upper left corner, a 4-tuple defining the left, upper, right, and lower pixel coordinate, or None (same as (0, 0))

Since you want to fill the entire image, you can use the following:

image.paste( (200,200,200), [0,0,image.size[0],image.size[1]])

Answer 2

One possibility is to draw a rectangle:

from PIL import Image
from PIL import ImageDraw
#...
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(image)
draw.rectangle([(0,0),image.size], fill = (200,200,200) )

Or (untested):

draw = ImageDraw.Draw(image).rectangle([(0,0),image.size], fill = (200,200,200) )

(Although it is surprising there is no simpler method to fill a whole image with one background color, like setTo for opencv)