I am using something a kin to this:
for (int w=0;w<bi.getWidth();w++) { for (int h=0;h<bi.getHeight();h++) { int color = bi.getRGB(w, h); color = color << 5; bi.setRGB(w, h, color); } }
I am using a solid green image so
11111111000000001111111100000000
I just wanted to see how it looked so bumped it over 5 places (obviously changing the color). To my surprise, there was no added transparency. I mean moving it to the left would make the alpha:
11100000
I am thinking that setRGB() doesn't effect alpha. Is this accurate?
*UPDATE*
Tested it and in fact setRGB has no effect on the alpha bits. So now the question is how can I gain access to them. Any help is appreciated; personally I am going to look into the writable Raster API. Perhaps, I can also use a modified awt to access directly OS data.