diff --git a/skimage/external/tifffile/__init__.py b/skimage/external/tifffile/__init__.py
index 9ca9ec84..bd426a3b 100644
--- a/skimage/external/tifffile/__init__.py
+++ b/skimage/external/tifffile/__init__.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
 try:
-    from tifffile import *
+    from tifffile import imread, imsave, TiffFile
 except ImportError:
-    from .tifffile_local import *
+    from .tifffile_local import imread, imsave, TiffFile