title: Open / load image as numpy ndarray directly
body: <p>I used to use scipy which would load an image from file straight into an ndarray.</p>
  
  <pre><code>from scipy import misc
  img = misc.imread('./myimage.jpg')
  type(img)
  &gt;&gt;&gt; numpy.ndarray
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But now it gives me a <code>DeprecationWarning</code> and the <a href="https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.misc.imread.html" rel="noreferrer">docs say it will be removed in 1.2.0.</a> and I should use imageio.imread instead. But:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import imageio
  img = imageio.imread('./myimage.jpg')
  type(img)
  &gt;&gt;&gt; imageio.core.util.Image
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I could convert it by doing</p>
  
  <pre><code>img = numpy.array(img)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But this seems hacky. Is there any way to load an image straight into a numpy array as I was doing before with scipy's <code>misc.imread</code> (other than using OpenCV)?</p>