Matplotlib Colormap This a small tutorial for making custom color map for matplotlib . You can also check the documentary page here . One simple way to make the colormap is using the available colours. Here is a simple example . import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from matplotlib import colors import numpy as np zvals = np.random.rand(10, 10) #cmap=colors.LinearSegmentedColormap.from_list("mycolor",['white', 'red','green','black']) cmap=colors.LinearSegmentedColormap.from_list("mycolor",['white','black']) img = plt.imshow(zvals, interpolation='nearest', origin='lower',cmap=cmap)