(This is the legacy documentation for stable SDL2, the current stable version; SDL3 is the current development version.)

SDL_PixelFormat

A structure that contains pixel format information.

Header File

Defined in [SDL_pixels.h](https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/blob/SDL2/include/SDL_pixels.h)

Syntax

typedef struct SDL_PixelFormat
{
    Uint32 format;
    SDL_Palette *palette;
    Uint8 BitsPerPixel;
    Uint8 BytesPerPixel;
    Uint8 padding[2];
    Uint32 Rmask;
    Uint32 Gmask;
    Uint32 Bmask;
    Uint32 Amask;
    Uint8 Rloss;
    Uint8 Gloss;
    Uint8 Bloss;
    Uint8 Aloss;
    Uint8 Rshift;
    Uint8 Gshift;
    Uint8 Bshift;
    Uint8 Ashift;
    int refcount;
    struct SDL_PixelFormat *next;
} SDL_PixelFormat;

Remarks

Everything in the pixel format structure is read-only.

A pixel format has either a palette or masks. If a palette is used Rmask, Gmask, Bmask, and Amask will be 0.

An SDL_PixelFormat describes the format of the pixel data stored at the pixels field of an SDL_Surface. Every surface stores an SDL_PixelFormat in the format field.

If you wish to do pixel level modifications on a surface, then understanding how SDL stores its color information is essential.

For information on modern pixel color spaces, see the following Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RGBA_color_space

Code Examples

8-bit pixel formats are the easiest to understand. Since it is an 8-bit format, we have 8 BitsPerPixel and 1 BytesPerPixel. Since BytesPerPixel is 1, all pixels are represented by a Uint8 which contains an index into palette->colors. So, to determine the color of a pixel in an 8-bit surface: we read the color index from surface->pixels and we use that index to read the SDL_Color structure from surface->format->palette->colors. Like so:

SDL_Surface *surface;
SDL_PixelFormat *fmt;
SDL_Color *color;
Uint8 index;

/* ... */

/* Create surface */

/* ... */

fmt=surface->format;

/* Check the bitdepth of the surface */
if(fmt->BitsPerPixel!=8){
  fprintf(stderr, "Not an 8-bit surface.\n");
  return(-1);
}

/* Lock the surface */
SDL_LockSurface(surface);

/* Get the topleft pixel */
index=*(Uint8 *)surface->pixels;
color=&fmt->palette->colors[index];

/* Unlock the surface */
SDL_UnlockSurface(surface);
printf("Pixel Color-> Red: %d, Green: %d, Blue: %d. Index: %d\n",
          color->r, color->g, color->b, index);

Pixel formats above 8-bit are an entirely different experience. They are considered to be "TrueColor" formats and the color information is stored in the pixels themselves, not in a palette. The mask, shift and loss fields tell us how the color information is encoded. The mask fields allow us to isolate each color component, the shift fields tell us the number of bits to the right of each component in the pixel value and the loss fields tell us the number of bits lost from each component when packing 8-bit color component in a pixel.

/* Extracting color components from a 32-bit color value */
SDL_PixelFormat *fmt;
SDL_Surface *surface;
Uint32 temp, pixel;
Uint8 red, green, blue, alpha;

/* ... */

fmt = surface->format;
SDL_LockSurface(surface);
pixel = *((Uint32*)surface->pixels);
SDL_UnlockSurface(surface);

/* Get Red component */
temp = pixel & fmt->Rmask;  /* Isolate red component */
temp = temp >> fmt->Rshift; /* Shift it down to 8-bit */
temp = temp << fmt->Rloss;  /* Expand to a full 8-bit number */
red = (Uint8)temp;

/* Get Green component */
temp = pixel & fmt->Gmask;  /* Isolate green component */
temp = temp >> fmt->Gshift; /* Shift it down to 8-bit */
temp = temp << fmt->Gloss;  /* Expand to a full 8-bit number */
green = (Uint8)temp;

/* Get Blue component */
temp = pixel & fmt->Bmask;  /* Isolate blue component */
temp = temp >> fmt->Bshift; /* Shift it down to 8-bit */
temp = temp << fmt->Bloss;  /* Expand to a full 8-bit number */
blue = (Uint8)temp;

/* Get Alpha component */
temp = pixel & fmt->Amask;  /* Isolate alpha component */
temp = temp >> fmt->Ashift; /* Shift it down to 8-bit */
temp = temp << fmt->Aloss;  /* Expand to a full 8-bit number */
alpha = (Uint8)temp;

printf("Pixel Color -> R: %d,  G: %d,  B: %d,  A: %d\n", red, green, blue, alpha);

/* ... */

See Also

SDL_ConvertSurface

SDL_GetRGB

SDL_GetRGBA

SDL_MapRGB

SDL_MapRGBA

SDL_AllocFormat

SDL_FreeFormat

Data Fields

Related Structures

SDL_Surface

CategoryAPI, CategoryAPIStruct, CategoryPixels