How to convert a BufferedImage to 8 bit?

Question

I was looking at the ImageConverter class, trying to figure out how to convert a BufferedImage to 8-bit color, but I have no idea how I would do this. I was also searching around the internet and I could find no simple answer, they were all talking about 8 bit grayscale images. I simply want to convert the colors of an image to 8 bit... nothing else, no resizing no nothing. Does anyone mind telling me how to do this.

Answer 1

You can use JAI (Java Advanced Imaging), the official Sun (now Oracle) image library to do that.

The ColorQuantizerDescriptor shows the choice of quantization processes you can apply.

Answer 2

This code snippet from the article "Transparent gifs in Java" at G-Man's Uber Software Engineering Blog works well:

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    BufferedImage src = convertRGBAToIndexed(ImageIO.read(new File("/src.jpg")));
    ImageIO.write(src, "gif", new File("/dest.gif"));
}

public static BufferedImage convertRGBAToIndexed(BufferedImage src) {
    BufferedImage dest = new BufferedImage(src.getWidth(), src.getHeight(), BufferedImage.TYPE_BYTE_INDEXED);
    Graphics g = dest.getGraphics();
    g.setColor(new Color(231, 20, 189));

    // fill with a hideous color and make it transparent
    g.fillRect(0, 0, dest.getWidth(), dest.getHeight());
    dest = makeTransparent(dest, 0, 0);

    dest.createGraphics().drawImage(src, 0, 0, null);
    return dest;
}

public static BufferedImage makeTransparent(BufferedImage image, int x, int y) {
    ColorModel cm = image.getColorModel();
    if (!(cm instanceof IndexColorModel))
        return image; // sorry...
    IndexColorModel icm = (IndexColorModel) cm;
    WritableRaster raster = image.getRaster();
    int pixel = raster.getSample(x, y, 0); // pixel is offset in ICM's palette
    int size = icm.getMapSize();
    byte[] reds = new byte[size];
    byte[] greens = new byte[size];
    byte[] blues = new byte[size];
    icm.getReds(reds);
    icm.getGreens(greens);
    icm.getBlues(blues);
    IndexColorModel icm2 = new IndexColorModel(8, size, reds, greens, blues, pixel);
    return new BufferedImage(icm2, raster, image.isAlphaPremultiplied(), null);
}