I think the answer is wrong. The Image.fromarray( ____ , 'L') function seems to only work properly with an array of integers between 0 and 255. I use the np.uint8 function for this.

You can see this demonstrated if you try to make a gradient.

import numpy as np
from PIL import Image

# gradient between 0 and 1 for 256*256
array = np.linspace(0,1,256*256)

# reshape to 2d
mat = np.reshape(array,(256,256))

# Creates PIL image
img = Image.fromarray(np.uint8(mat * 255) , 'L')
img.show()

Makes a clean gradient

vs

import numpy as np
from PIL import Image

# gradient between 0 and 1 for 256*256
array = np.linspace(0,1,256*256)

# reshape to 2d
mat = np.reshape(array,(256,256))

# Creates PIL image
img = Image.fromarray( mat , 'L')
img.show()

Has the same kind of artifacting.

As the assertion states, adaptiveThreshold() requires a single-channeled 8-bit image.

Assuming your floating-point image ranges from 0 to 1, which appears to be the case, you can convert the image by multiplying by 255 and casting to np.uint8:

float_img = np.random.random((4,4))
im = np.array(float_img * 255, dtype = np.uint8)
threshed = cv2.adaptiveThreshold(im, 255, cv2.ADAPTIVE_THRESH_MEAN_C, cv2.THRESH_BINARY, 3, 0)

Black square is probably very dark gray, because you may have np.array with uint8 datatype, which has range of 0-255, not 0-1 like binary array. Try changing array datatype to bool, or scale values to 0-255 range.

Here is code snippet in which binary array is generated and displayed. If you scale by smaller value, circle will become slightly darker.

from PIL import Image
import numpy as np

# Generating binary array which represents circle
radius = 0.9
size = 100
x,y = np.meshgrid(np.linspace(-1,1,size),np.linspace(-1,1,size))
f = np.vectorize(lambda x,y: ( 1.0 if x*x + y*y < radius*radius else 0.0))
array = f(x,y)

# Solution 1: 
# convert np.array to bool datatype
array = (array).astype(np.bool)

# Solution 2:
# scale values to uint8 maximum 255
array = ((array) * 255).astype(np.uint8)


img = Image.fromarray(array)
display(img)

Result: White circle

With PIL it should work like this

from PIL import Image

I8 = (((I - I.min()) / (I.max() - I.min())) * 255.9).astype(np.uint8)

img = Image.fromarray(I8)
img.save("file.png")

See the answers in another thread.

Essentially:

gray = 0.2989 * r + 0.5870 * g + 0.1140 * b
np.dot(rgb[...,:3], [0.299, 0.587, 0.114])

Your array of "binary values" is an array of bytes?

If so, you can do (using Pillow) after resizing it:

from PIL import Image
im = Image.fromarray(arr)

And then im.show() to see it.

If your array has only 0's and 1's (1-bit depth or b/w) you may have to multiply it to 255

im = Image.fromarray(arr * 255)

Here an example:

>>> arr = numpy.random.randint(0,256, 100*100) #example of a 1-D array
>>> arr.resize((100,100))
>>> im = Image.fromarray(arr)
>>> im.show()

Edit (2018):

This question was written in 2011 and Pillow changed ever since requiring to use the mode='L' parameter when loading with fromarray.

Also on comments below it was said arr.astype(np.uint8) was needed as well, but I have not tested it

Two issues. Firstly, you are not converting to greyscale. Secondly, the whole point of numpy is to vectorise and avoid for loops because they are slow.

So starting with this image:

You want something like this:

#!/usr/local/bin/python3
import numpy as np
from PIL import Image

# Load coins and convert to greyscale
grey = np.array(Image.open('coins.png').convert('L'))

# Threshold at 128
thresholded=((grey>128)*255).astype(np.uint8)

# Save
Image.fromarray(thresholded).save('result.png')

Here is a working code:

def grayConversion(image):
    grayValue = 0.07 * image[:,:,2] + 0.72 * image[:,:,1] + 0.21 * image[:,:,0]
    gray_img = grayValue.astype(np.uint8)
    return gray_img

orig = cv2.imread(r'C:\Users\Jackson\Desktop\drum.png', 1)
g = grayConversion(orig)

cv2.imshow("Original", orig)
cv2.imshow("GrayScale", g)
cv2.waitKey(0)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()