Need a function to convert between bitmap, GIF, EMF, JPEG, PNG, WMF, and ICO image formats, among others? Don’t buy a third-party control: this conversion is exactly what my next crafty little snippet does. And all in a mere dozen lines of code.

Just call ConvertImage, passing in the filename of your current file, the desired format of your new file (using the enumeration), and your new filename. And that’s it:

Public Sub ConvertImage(ByVal Filename As String, _
    ByVal DesiredFormat As System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat, _
    ByVal NewFilename As String)
    ' Takes a filename and saves the file in a new format
    Try
        Dim imgFile As System.Drawing.Image = _
            System.Drawing.Image.FromFile(Filename)
        imgFile.Save(NewFilename, DesiredFormat)
    Catch ex As Exception
        Throw ex
    End Try
End Sub

Here’s an example of using this to convert a GIF image into a Windows bitmap:

ConvertImage("c:\img1.gif", System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp, "c:\img2.bmp")