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UTF-8 decoding doesn't decode special characters in python

Hi I have the following data (abstracted) that comes from an API.
"Product" : "T\u00e1bua 21X40"
I'm using the following code to decode the data byte:
var = json.loads(cleanhtml(str(json.dumps(response.content.decode('utf-8')))))
The cleanhtml is a regex function that I've created to remove html tags from the returned data (It's working correctly). Although, decode(utf-8) is not removing characters like \u00e1. My expected output is:
"Product" : "Tábua 21X40"
I've tried to use replace("\\u00e1", "á") but with no success. How can I replace this type of character and what type of character is this?

\u00e1 is another way of representing the á character when displaying the contents of a Python string.
If you open a Python interactive session and run print({"Product" : "T\u00e1bua 21X40"}) you'll see output of {'Product': 'Tábua 21X40'}. The \u00e1 doesn't exist in the string as those individual characters.
The \u escape sequence indicates that the following numbers specify a Unicode character.
Attempting to replace \u00e1 with á won't achieve anything because that's what it already is. Additionally, replace("\\u00e1", "á") is attempting to replace the individual characters of a slash, a u, etc and, as mentioned, they don't actually exist in the string in that way.
If you explain the problem you're encountering further then we may be able to help more, but currently it sounds like the string has the correct content but is just being displayed differently than you expect.

what type of character is this
Here
"Product" : "T\u00e1bua 21X40"
you might observe \u escape sequence, it is followed by 4 hex digits: 00e1, note that this is different represenation of same character, so
print("\u00e1" == "á")
output
True

These type of characters are called character entities. There are different types of entities and this is JSON entity. For demonstration, enter your string here and click unescape.
For your question, if you are using python then you can solve the issue by importing json module. Then you have to decode it as follows.
import json
string = json.loads('"T\u00e1bua 21X40"')
print(string)

Python: Image's path as a raw string an input to a function

Python: I want to get an image as an input from the user as a raw string! I used input() to get the path. Giving it as a raw string makes the program work, I can do it by appending r before the path, but Image.open(' ') also takes r as a string and producing an error. Can someone help me in resolving this problem.
path=input('Please enter the path of the image')
im=Image.open(path)
get an error as no file found
if i give..
y='r'+path
im=Image.open(y)
then the error is
OSError: [Errno 22] Invalid argument: 'rC:\\Users\\User\\Desktop\.......jpeg'
I am new to python, so please help me if there is any method by which I can solve this issue.

raw strings are for a programmer's convenience; you don't have to have your users enter raw strings as normal input.
See the end of this post for the solution to your problem. Because you said you are new to Python, I have decided to give a detailed answer here.
Why raw strings?
Normal strings assign special meaning to the \ (backslash) character. This is fine as \ can be escaped by using \\ (two backslashes) to represent a single backslash.
However, this can sometimes become ugly.
Consider, for example, a path: C:\Users\Abhishek\test.txt. To represent this as a normal string in Python, all \ must be escaped:
string = 'C:\\Users\\Abhishek\\test.txt'
You can avoid this by using raw strings. Raw strings don't treat \ specially.
string = r'C:\Users\Abhishek\test.txt'
That's it. This is the only use of raw strings, viz., convenience.
Solution
If you are using Python 2, use raw_input instead of input. If you are using Python 3 (as you should be) input is fine. Don't try to input the path as a raw string.

Ignoring escape sequences

I'm using Python 2.6 and I have a variable which contains a string (I have sent it thorugh sockets and now I want to do something with it).
The problem is that I get the following error:
TypeError: file() argument 1 must be encoded string without NULL bytes, not str
After I looked it up I found out that the problem is probably that the string I'm sending contains '\0' but it isn't a literal string that I can just edit with double backslash or adding a 'r' before hand, so is there a way to tell python to ignore the escape sequences and treat the whole thing as string?
(For example - I don't want python to treat the sequence \0 as a null char, but rather I want it to be treated as a backslash char followed by a zero char)

Considering all comments it looks like incorrectly used PIL/Pillow API, namely the Image.open function that requires file name instead of file data.

Decode a string - Quote marks issue

I am supposed to decode the string below in a script I have made (it is a task from a webpage). In order to ensure that the decoded word will be correct, I can not change the string in any way. Since the quote marks affects the string, parts like q90:;AI is not a string, which results in a syntax error.
q0Ø:;AI"E47FRBQNBG4WNB8B4LQN8ERKC88U8GEN?T6LaNBG4GØ""N6K086HB"Ø8CRHW"+LS79Ø""N29QCLN5WNEBS8GENBG4FØ47a
Is there a way I can decode the encrypted message without changing it? As of now I am just getting syntax error when I define the string in a variable.

You can surround the string with single quotes, since double quotes are used in the string already:
>>> print 'q0Ø:;AI"E47FRBQNBG4WNB8B4LQN8ERKC88U8GEN?T6LaNBG4GØ""N6K086HB"Ø8CRHW"+LS79Ø""N29QCLN5WNEBS8GENBG4FØ47a'
q0Ã:;AI"E47FRBQNBG4WNB8B4LQN8ERKC88U8GEN?T6LaNBG4GÃ""N6K086HB"Ã8CRHW"+LS79Ã""N29QCLN5WNEBS8GENBG4FÃ47a
>>>

Explicitly make a string into raw string

I am reading reading path to the registry from a text file. The registry path is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\MYAPP\6.3
I store this registry in a variable :
REGISTRY_KEY
Then I strip the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE part from the string and try to read the value at the key.
if REGISTRY_KEY.split('\\')[0] == "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE":
keyPath = REGISTRY_KEY.strip("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\")
try:
key = winreg.OpenKey(winreg.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, keyPath)
value = winreg.QueryValueEx(key, "InstallPath")[0]
except IOError as err:
print(err)
I get the following error
[WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified
However if I do it manually like
key = winreg.OpenKey(winreg.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,r'Software\MYAPP\6.3')
OR
key = winreg.OpenKey(winreg.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,"Software\\MYAPP\\6.3")
it works.
So is there any way I can make the keyPath variable to either be a raw string or contain double '\'
PS:I am using Python 3.3

A raw str is a way of entering the string so you do not need to escape special characters. Another way to enter the same str is to escape the special characters (blackslash being one of them). They would have the same data. So really your question doesn't have an answer.
You are also using strip incorrectly, but it would not matter for this particular string. Because the first character after the first \ is S and S is not in your strip command and your key ends in a digit also not in your strip command. But you will want to fix it so other keys are not messed up by this. You got lucky on this string.
>>> r"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\MYAPP\6.3".strip("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\")
'Software\\MYAPP\\6.3'
As for your real problem. There is something else about the string that is wrong. Try print repr(keyPath) before your call to OpenKey
EDIT: looks like SylvainDefresne guessed correctly about a newline character on the end of the string

Your REGISTRY_KEY.strip() call is not doing what you think it's doing. It doesn't remove the string HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ from the beginning of the string. Instead, it removes the characters H, K, E, etc., in any order, from both ends of the string. This is why it works when you manually put in what you expect.
As for your original question, a double backslash is an escape sequence that produces a single backslash in your string, so it is not necessary to convert keyPath to double slashes.