Java™ Media APIs: Cross-Platform Imaging, Media, and Visualization

Pixel Storage and Conversion

Each location in an Image is associated with a single pixel, but a pixel isn't the smallest unit of interest. Each pixel contains one or more samples representing the different bands in the Image. For example, pixels representing a color image could have samples of red, green, blue or alpha, red, green, blue, where alpha is a measure of transparency not a color component. Similarly, pixels representing a grayscale image might only contain one sample. Another thing that must be considered is output devices. A pixel may represent bands of red, green, and blue, but an output device, such as a printer, might expect bands of cyan, magenta, and yellow. So when working with image data, two required steps are:

1.	Extract ...