Welcome to the GDI+ FAQ. For almost a decade now this site has been the primary resource for programmers who want to create great graphical applications using GDI+ as the rendering engine. I have been delighted to meet so many people, both electronically and in "real life" and I still receive many mails and requests for GDI+ tips and techniques.

Despite the arrival of Windows Presentation Foundation, GDI+ is not dead and there are probably still things that are yet to be discovered which can still be applied to this venerable old rendering engine.

This site, which has been html based for many years, largely due to my own laziness is undergoing modernisation with ASP.Net and Silverlight interfaces. All the old content remains, its still maintained and will be added to as required.

As always, I appreciate your comments and suggestions and I now have a contact form through which you can get in touch with me personally. I read all of the thousands of mails that I receive and will answer you personally if possible.

FAQ The #1 most asked GDI+ question Why do my graphics keep disappearing? Images Creating and loading images Drawing Images Calculating best-fit drawing using a transform Convert color images to grayscale Changing resolution of or cropping images Saving JPEG images with a specific compression quality Creating animated GIF images Creating a negative image Modifying an image and writing it back to the same filename Converting RGB to 1 bit-per-pixel monochrome Transparent GIF images Discovering the Property Items present in an image Understanding the LockBits method and the BitmapData class Creating high-resolution images and text Creating an optimized palette for GIF images Generating Multi-Frame TIFF image files Adding frames to a Multi-Frame TIFF Drawing on an existing image Creating a high-quality thumbnail image Colour Using RGB and HSL in .NET Adjusting the Saturation of an image Adjusting the contrast of an image Finding the colour at a certain point. (eyedropper) Text Drawing text with a drop-shadow Text effects. Emboss, Outline and Warp Drawing text at an angle Drawing text on a reversed Y axis Drawing text with a halo or aura Formatting text on a common baseline Drawing lines and shapes Drawing single pixel lines Plotting single pixels Drawing round rectangles Hit testing lines Pens and brushes Using the LinearGradientBrush Using the PathGradientBrush Scaling the TextureBrush Scaling the Pen object Paths Hit testing lines Regions Extract a region from a bitmap General GDI+ technique When to dispose of resources Converting mouse coordinates to the current page units Comparing GDI Mapping Modes and GDI+ Transformations Miscellaneous questions and tips Why is GDI+ so slow? How (or how not) to use the PictureBox control How do I manipulate the graphics on screen? How to capture the screen or an image of a control When to use CreateGraphics What are the limits of the drawing extents? BUGS! The Spirograph bug GetRegionScans BUG