How to convert an image to 32 bit BMP
BMP image format can be saved in several different pixel format. Some programs and APIs requires their resources to be in 32bit BMP. Unfortunately, Microsoft Paint support saving only 24bit BMPs.
Since this issue is raised a lot when dealing with Windows Ribbon Framework I’ve decided to solve it once and for all. I’ve written a small console application that converts images into 32bit BMPs.
you can get convert2bmp.exe here, under “Other Available Downloads”.
Using the program
convert2bmp <source> <target>
for example: convert2bmp my24bit.BMP my32bit.BMP
What the program does
- Load the image
- Set the white color as the transparent color, thus making use of the alpha channel and forcing the image to be 32bit
- Save the image
Source Code (C#)
Basically it looks like this:
Bitmap bmp = Image.FromFile(sourceFilename) as Bitmap;
bmp.MakeTransparent(Color.White);
bmp.Save(targetFilename, ImageFormat.Bmp);
Of course the actual version is 10 times longer due to error handling code.
That’s it for now,
Arik Poznanski.
