Thanks Rob, i put your idea to the
test with a very simple prototype which I include below. It worked fine.
You know, the Sun API docs are brilliantly put together on some ways. Everything is so tight, but the downside is that they don't make it easy to figure out little things like "the default is transparent. I mean here is a section from the API
doc for BufferedImage. The description is a model of precision yes, but not of clarity. Anyways, thank God for JavaRanch, I'd probably still be trying to figure this out this evening.
So you look up things like DirectColorModel, premultiplied, etc. And after a 3 hour course maybe you find out that yes indeed the default is transparent.
Ayways, life goes on. Here is my prototype.