How can I draw an image from the HTML5 File API on Canvas?

You have a File instance which is not an image.

To get an image, use new Image(). The src needs to be an URL referencing to the selected File. You can use URL.createObjectURL to get an URL referencing to a Blob (a File is also a Blob): http://jsfiddle.net/t7mv6/86/.

var ctx = document.getElementById('canvas').getContext('2d');
var img = new Image;
img.onload = function() {
    ctx.drawImage(img, 20,20);
    alert('the image is drawn');
}
img.src = URL.createObjectURL(e.target.files[0]);

Note: be sure to revoke the object url when you are done with it otherwise you'll leak memory. If you're not doing anything too crazy, you can just stick a URL.revokeObjectURL(img.src) in the img.onload function.

References:

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/File
• http://html5demos.com/file-api

Live Example

function handleFiles(e) {
    var ctx = document.getElementById('canvas').getContext('2d');
    var url = URL.createObjectURL(e.target.files[0]);
    var img = new Image();
    img.onload = function() {
        ctx.drawImage(img, 20, 20);    
    }
    img.src = url;   
}

window.URL.createObjectUrl^docs

You could also use the FileReader instead to create the object URL.

The FileReader has slightly better browser support.

The FileReader approach works in FF6 / Chrome. I'm not certain whether setting Img.src to a Blob is valid and cross-browser though.

Creating object urls is the correct way to do it.

Edit:

As mentioned in the commment window.URL support whilst offline seems unavailable in FF6/Chrome.