Quick example of creating a recolorized (one-color) image

gaussian_replacement.py

# Replacement for ImageFilter.GaussianBlur which always sets the
# blur radius to the default of 2.
# Code from http://aaronfay.ca/content/post/python-pil-and-gaussian-blur/

import ImageFilter


class MyGaussianBlur(ImageFilter.Filter):
    name = "GaussianBlur"
    
    def __init__(self, radius=2):
        self.radius = radius
    
    def filter(self, image):
        return image.gaussian_blur(self.radius)

image_open.py

import Image


flowers = Image.open("flowers.jpg")

image_overlay.py

import Image
import ImageEnhance


def image_overlay(src, color="#FFFFFF", alpha=0.5):
    """
    Returns a washed out, one color version of the initial image as an Image
    object.

    It does this with a really simple hack: set the original image to B&W and
    then drop an alpha valued color layer on top. Perfect? No. Works? Yes. You
    can experiment by changing the order of the overlay below to see what works
    best.

    color: optional color value of the overlay; can be provided in any format
    acceptable to PIL.

    alpha: optional alpha value for the overlay.
    """
    overlay = Image.new(src.mode, src.size, color)
    bw_src = ImageEnhance.Color(src).enhance(0.0)
    return Image.blend(bw_src, overlay, alpha)

image_recolorize.py

import Image
import ImageOps


def image_recolorize(src, black="#000099", white="#99CCFF"):
    """
    Returns a recolorized version of the initial image using a two-tone
    approach. The color in the black argument is used to replace black pixels
    and the color in the white argument is used to replace white pixels.
    
    The defaults set the image to a blue hued image.
    """
    return ImageOps.colorize(ImageOps.grayscale(src), black, white)