How do take a screenshot correctly with xlib?

Question

You are mistaken about the way array is laid out in memory, as you can find out by declaring img before the loop and adding this printf to your inner loop:

printf("%ld %ld %u %u %u\n",x,y,pic.offset(x,y,0),pic.offset(x,y,1),pic.offset(x,y,2));

This yields (on my 1920x1200 screen):

0 0 0 2304000 4608000
0 1 1920 2305920 4609920
0 2 3840 2307840 4611840

and so on, indicating that the red/green/blue subimages are kept "together" instead of the three color components of a single pixel being adjacent to each other.

The builtin CImg accessors will make your code work:

pic(x,y,0) = red;
pic(x,y,1) = green;
pic(x,y,2) = blue;

You can use libpng

int code = 0;
FILE *fp;
png_structp png_ptr;
png_infop png_info_ptr;
png_bytep png_row;

// Open file
fp = fopen ("test.png", "wb");
if (fp == NULL){
    fprintf (stderr, "Could not open file for writing\n");
    code = 1;
}

// Initialize write structure
png_ptr = png_create_write_struct (PNG_LIBPNG_VER_STRING, NULL, NULL, NULL);
if (png_ptr == NULL){
    fprintf (stderr, "Could not allocate write struct\n");
    code = 1;
}

// Initialize info structure
png_info_ptr = png_create_info_struct (png_ptr);
if (png_info_ptr == NULL){
    fprintf (stderr, "Could not allocate info struct\n");
    code = 1;
 }

// Setup Exception handling
if (setjmp (png_jmpbuf (png_ptr))){
    fprintf(stderr, "Error during png creation\n");
   code = 1;
}

png_init_io (png_ptr, fp);

// Write header (8 bit colour depth)
png_set_IHDR (png_ptr, png_info_ptr, width, height,
     8, PNG_COLOR_TYPE_RGB, PNG_INTERLACE_NONE,
     PNG_COMPRESSION_TYPE_BASE, PNG_FILTER_TYPE_BASE);

// Set title
char *title = "Screenshot";
if (title != NULL){
    png_text title_text;
    title_text.compression = PNG_TEXT_COMPRESSION_NONE;
    title_text.key = "Title";
    title_text.text = title;
    png_set_text (png_ptr, png_info_ptr, &title_text, 1);
}

png_write_info (png_ptr, png_info_ptr);

// Allocate memory for one row (3 bytes per pixel - RGB)
png_row = (png_bytep) malloc (3 * width * sizeof (png_byte));

// Write image data
int x, y;
for (y = 0; y < height; y++){
    for (x = 0; x < width; x++){
        unsigned long pixel = XGetPixel (image, x, y);
        unsigned char blue = pixel & blue_mask;
        unsigned char green = (pixel & green_mask) >> 8; 
        unsigned char red = (pixel & red_mask) >> 16;
        png_byte *ptr = &(png_row[x*3]);
        ptr[0] = red;
        ptr[1] = green;
        ptr[2] = blue;
    }
    png_write_row (png_ptr, png_row);
}

// End write
png_write_end (png_ptr, NULL);

// Free
fclose (fp);
if (png_info_ptr != NULL) png_free_data (png_ptr, png_info_ptr, PNG_FREE_ALL, -1);
if (png_ptr != NULL) png_destroy_write_struct (&png_ptr, (png_infopp)NULL);
if (png_row != NULL) free (png_row);

image has to stored in memory as R1R2R3R4R5R6......G1G2G3G4G5G6.......B1B2B3B4B5B6. cimg storage