Saving Panel as an Image

Question

I'm doing this paint application. It's kind of simple. It consist of a panel where I will draw on and then finally I will save as JPG or BMP or PNG file.

My application work perfectly but the problem I'm facing is that when I'm saving the output is not what drawn on the panel its black Image nothing just black.

all my work is been saved as

Thepic = new Bitmap(panel1.ClientRectangle.Width, this.ClientRectangle.Height);

and on the mouse (down,up thing) I have

snapshot = (Bitmap)tempDraw.Clone();

and it saved the work normally but again the rsult is black Image not what the panel contain.

... I'd correct the post myself, but if that's pasted from your real source you might want to know about it... — Joel Coehoorn, Dec 02 '09 at 22:36
Its ok but still Im so confused why The out put is stil black Image — Tony, Dec 02 '09 at 22:39

score 15 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 14 '17 at 12:04

I think the problem may be that you're using the "Clone" method.

Try "DrawToBitmap" - that's worked for me in the past.

Here's a sample that saves a bitmap from a control called "plotPrinter":

        int width = plotPrinter.Size.Width;
        int height = plotPrinter.Size.Height;

        Bitmap bm = new Bitmap(width, height);
        plotPrinter.DrawToBitmap(bm, new Rectangle(0, 0, width, height));

        bm.Save(@"D:\TestDrawToBitmap.bmp", ImageFormat.Bmp);

        Be aware of saving directly to the C directly as this is not 
        permitted with newer versions of window, try using SaveFileDialog.

    SaveFileDialog sf = new SaveFileDialog();
    sf.Filter = "Bitmap Image (.bmp)|*.bmp|Gif Image (.gif)|*.gif|JPEG Image (.jpeg)|*.jpeg|Png Image (.png)|*.png|Tiff Image (.tiff)|*.tiff|Wmf Image (.wmf)|*.wmf";
    sf.ShowDialog();
    var path = sf.FileName;

This works great for controls with no child controls, but when the control has child controls, `DrawToBitmap` draws the children in reverse the 'z' order (meaning behind controls are drawn in front of the real front controls). — Zach Johnson, Dec 02 '09 at 23:25

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 17 '20 at 19:39

You could try this, this works for me.

I used MemoryStream.

MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(panel1.Width, panel1.Height);
panel1.DrawToBitmap(bmp, new System.Drawing.Rectangle(0, 0, panel1.Width, panel1.Height));
bmp.Save(ms, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg); //you could ave in BPM, PNG  etc format.
byte[] Pic_arr = new byte[ms.Length];
ms.Position = 0;
ms.Read(Pic_arr, 0, Pic_arr.Length);
ms.Close();

Saving Panel as an Image

2 Answers2

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