erm yes that was it ! forgot about the alpha component :/ silly me :-O

i pasted only part of the code, the g.clear to fill the bitmap worked nicely just what i needed :) and basically im trying to build a spectograph so not every pixel is being drawn and everypixel i draw has a different weight :) thats why im going tthrough it pixel by pixel. the program is still in the early stages though thats why it may look a bit raw. Thanks a lot for your help ! :)

Sure i Create the bitmap here Bitmap pane = new Bitmap(800, 800); then i had to init the bitmap with a colour to get it working for (int i = 0; i < pane.Height; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < pane.Width; j++) { pane.SetPixel(j, i, Color.Black); } } basically i have to get rid of the code above then i use unsafe mode to set colours to individual pixels public Bitmap backup(Bitmap pane) { BitmapData panedata = pane.LockBits(new Rectangle(0, 0, pane.Width, pane.Height), ImageLockMode.ReadWrite, pane.PixelFormat); int stride = panedata.Stride; //returns the location of the first pixel of the image IntPtr Scan0 = panedata.Scan0; unsafe { byte* p = (byte*)(void*)Scan0; int nOffset = stride - pane.Height *3 ; int nWidth = pane.Width * 3; for (int y = 0; y < pane.Height; ++y) { for (int x = 0; x < pane.Width; ++x) { *(p + 0) = (byte)255; *(p + 1) = (byte)0; *(p + 2) = (byte)0; p += 4; } } } pane.UnlockBits(panedata); return pane; } like that it works but its takes ages to start

Hi all i have a small problem I am creating a new blank bitmap in a program, then using the lock bitmap i edit pixels. the Purpose iss to build a spectograph. Now my problem is that when i create the bitmap Bitmap pane = new Bitmap(800, 800); then edit it using pointers the image remains blank :doh: the only work around i could find is initialiazing the bitmap with setpixels one by one. This is obviously very slow and ive been trying to find a faster way :/ any suggetions ??