diff --git a/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py b/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py
index e1390685..f8d6488d 100644
--- a/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py
+++ b/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ def imread(fname, dtype=None):
         return pil_to_ndarray(im, dtype)
 
 
-def pil_to_ndarray(im, dtype=None):
+def pil_to_ndarray(im, dtype=None, close_fid=True):
     """Import a PIL Image object to an ndarray, in memory.
 
     Parameters
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ def pil_to_ndarray(im, dtype=None):
     elif 'A' in im.mode:
         im = im.convert('RGBA')
     im = np.array(im, dtype=dtype)
-    if fp is not None:
+    if fp is not None and close_fid:
         fp.close()
     return im
 
diff --git a/skimage/io/collection.py b/skimage/io/collection.py
index b5821c01..15ed5cfb 100644
--- a/skimage/io/collection.py
+++ b/skimage/io/collection.py
@@ -131,7 +131,8 @@ class MultiImage(object):
             self._frames = self._getallframes(img)
             self._numframes = len(self._frames)
 
-        img.close()
+        if not self.tif_img:
+            img.fp.close()
 
     @property
     def filename(self):
@@ -178,11 +179,15 @@ class MultiImage(object):
             try:
                 i = 0
                 while True:
-                    frames.append(pil_to_ndarray(img, dtype=self._dtype))
+                    frames.append(pil_to_ndarray(img, dtype=self._dtype,
+                                                 close_fid=False))
                     i += 1
                     img.seek(i)
             except EOFError:
-                return frames
+                pass
+            finally:
+                img.fp.close()
+            return frames
 
     def __getitem__(self, n):
         """Return the n-th frame as an array.