Question

I have a 8 bit bitmap color image. when i do a

Color pixelcolor = b.GetPixel(j,i);    
Console.Write(pixelcolor.ToString() + " " );

I get

 Color [A=255, R=255, G=255, B=255]

I need to get only the 8 bit value. not 24 bit seperate values for R,G,B ,A.

Answer 1

There is no way to do this using the Bitmap class directly. However, you can use the LockBits method to access the pixels directly.

Using unsafe code: (remember to enable unsafe code in your project first)

public static unsafe Byte GetIndexedPixel(Bitmap b, Int32 x, Int32 y)
{
    if (b.PixelFormat != PixelFormat.Format8bppIndexed) throw new ArgumentException("Image is not in 8 bit per pixel indexed format!");
    if (x < 0 || x >= b.Width) throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("x", string.Format("x should be in 0-{0}", b.Width));
    if (y < 0 || y >= b.Height) throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("y", string.Format("y should be in 0-{0}", b.Height));
    BitmapData data = b.LockBits(new Rectangle(0, 0, b.Width, b.Height), ImageLockMode.ReadOnly, b.PixelFormat);
    try
    {
        Byte* scan0 = (Byte*)data.Scan0;
        return scan0[x + y * data.Stride];
    }
    finally
    {
        if (data != null) b.UnlockBits(data);
    }
}

The safe alternative, using Marshal.Copy:

public static Byte GetIndexedPixel(Bitmap b, Int32 x, Int32 y)
{
    if (b.PixelFormat != PixelFormat.Format8bppIndexed) throw new ArgumentException("Image is not in 8 bit per pixel indexed format!");
    if (x < 0 || x >= b.Width) throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("x", string.Format("x should be in 0-{0}", b.Width));
    if (y < 0 || y >= b.Height) throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("y", string.Format("y should be in 0-{0}", b.Height));
    BitmapData data = b.LockBits(new Rectangle(0, 0, b.Width, b.Height), ImageLockMode.ReadOnly, b.PixelFormat);
    try
    {
        Byte[] pixel = new Byte[1];
        Marshal.Copy(new IntPtr(data.Scan0.ToInt64() + x + y * data.Stride), pixel, 0, 1);
        return pixel[0];
    }
    finally
    {
        if (data != null) b.UnlockBits(data);
    }
}