Question

Does anybody know how to properly identify CMYK images in ASP.NET using C#? When I check the Flags attribute of a Bitmap instance, I get incorrect results.

I have created three images to test this: cmyk.jpg, rgb.jpg and gray.jpg. These are respectively CMYK, RGB and Grayscale images.

This is my test code:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Bitmap bmpCMYK = new Bitmap("cmyk.jpg");
    Bitmap bmpRGB = new Bitmap("rgb.jpg");
    Bitmap bmpGray = new Bitmap("gray.jpg");

    Console.WriteLine("\t\tRgb\tCmyk\tGray\tYcbcr\tYcck\tPixelFormat");

    Console.WriteLine("cmyk.jpg\t{0}\t{1}\t{2}\t{3}\t{4}\t{5}",
        IsSet(bmpCMYK, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceRgb),
        IsSet(bmpCMYK, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceCmyk),
        IsSet(bmpCMYK, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceGray),
        IsSet(bmpCMYK, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceYcbcr),
        IsSet(bmpCMYK, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceYcck),
        bmpCMYK.PixelFormat);

    Console.WriteLine("rgb.jpg\t\t{0}\t{1}\t{2}\t{3}\t{4}\t{5}",
        IsSet(bmpRGB, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceRgb),
        IsSet(bmpRGB, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceCmyk),
        IsSet(bmpRGB, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceGray),
        IsSet(bmpRGB, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceYcbcr),
        IsSet(bmpRGB, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceYcck),
        bmpRGB.PixelFormat);

    Console.WriteLine("gray.jpg\t{0}\t{1}\t{2}\t{3}\t{4}\t{5}",
        IsSet(bmpGray, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceRgb),
        IsSet(bmpGray, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceCmyk),
        IsSet(bmpGray, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceGray),
        IsSet(bmpGray, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceYcbcr),
        IsSet(bmpGray, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags.ColorSpaceYcck),
        bmpGray.PixelFormat);

    bmpCMYK.Dispose();
    bmpRGB.Dispose();
    bmpGray.Dispose();

    Console.ReadLine();
}

private static bool IsSet(Bitmap bitmap, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFlags flag)
{
    return (bitmap.Flags & (int)flag) == (int)flag;
}

This produces the following output:

I have checked the actual images and cmyk.jpg really is a CMYK image.

Apparently, this is a “known issue”. Alex Gil had the same problem in WPF (see this question: How to identify CMYK images using C#) and he managed to solve it by using a BitmapDecoder class to load the images. I’m a bit uncomfortable using that solution in ASP.NET because it requires me to add references to WindowsBase.dll and PresentationCore.dll and I’m not sure I want those in a web project.

Does anyone know of any other pure .NET solutions to check if an image is in the CMYK format that I can safely use in ASP.NET?

Answer 1

I use a combination of the ImageFlags and PixelFormat values. Note that PixelFormat.Forma32bppCMYK is missing from .NET – I grabbed it out of GdiPlusPixelFormats.h in the Windows SDK.

The trick is that Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 returns the correct pixel format but is missing the image flags. Vista and Server 2008 return an invalid pixel format but the correct image flags. Insanity.

public ImageColorFormat GetColorFormat(this Bitmap bitmap)
{
    const int pixelFormatIndexed = 0x00010000;
    const int pixelFormat32bppCMYK = 0x200F;
    const int pixelFormat16bppGrayScale = (4 | (16 << 8);

    // Check image flags
    var flags = (ImageFlags)bitmap.Flags;
    if (flags.HasFlag(ImageFlags.ColorSpaceCmyk) || flags.HasFlag(ImageFlags.ColorSpaceYcck))
    {
        return ImageColorFormat.Cmyk;
    }
    else if (flags.HasFlag(ImageFlags.ColorSpaceGray))
    {
        return ImageColorFormat.Grayscale;
    }

    // Check pixel format
    var pixelFormat = (int)bitmap.PixelFormat;
    if (pixelFormat == pixelFormat32bppCMYK)
    {
        return ImageColorFormat.Cmyk;
    }
    else if ((pixelFormat & pixelFormatIndexed) != 0)
    {
        return ImageColorFormat.Indexed;
    }
    else if (pixelFormat == pixelFormat16bppGrayScale)
    {
        return ImageColorFormat.Grayscale;
    }

    // Default to RGB
    return ImageColorFormat.Rgb;
}    

public enum ImageColorFormat
{
    Rgb,
    Cmyk,
    Indexed,
    Grayscale
}