diff --git a/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py b/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py
index a23050db..885ce0c2 100644
--- a/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py
+++ b/skimage/io/_plugins/pil_plugin.py
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ except ImportError:
 from skimage.util import img_as_ubyte, img_as_uint
 
 from six import string_types
-from .tifffile import imread as tif_imread, imsave as tif_imsave
+from tifffile import imread as tif_imread, imsave as tif_imsave
 
 
 def imread(fname, dtype=None):
diff --git a/skimage/io/_plugins/tifffile_plugin.py b/skimage/io/_plugins/tifffile_plugin.py
index fb0494c4..58038db4 100644
--- a/skimage/io/_plugins/tifffile_plugin.py
+++ b/skimage/io/_plugins/tifffile_plugin.py
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 try:
-    from .tifffile import imread, imsave
+    from tifffile import imread, imsave
 except ImportError:
     raise ImportError("The tifffile module could not be found.\n"
         "It can be obtained at "