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How to keep what is drawn on panel and save to bitmap when the "CLEAR" button is pressed?

I want to finish my paint program for my Daughter and am having issues with the panel keeping drawings rendered on the panel when the application is minimized. I would also like for the program to automatically save to a file what she drew on the panel when she clicks on the "CLEAR" and/or "CLOSE" button.

If you want to keep your drawings you could instead of drawing in the graphics of the panel draw inside a Image of that panel nonetheless you can use Panel.DrawToImage() it should be like this
Panel.DrawToBitmap(Bitmap, Panel.ClientRectangle);
Bitmap bmp; //this will be the image where you would draw to
Graphics g; // the graphics
public ALANA_PAINT()
{
//do your stuff
bmp = new Bitmap(Width,Height)// Initialize the bitmap
Panel.BackgroundImage = bmp;
g = Graphics.FromImage(bmp);
}
//your normal drawing methods
public void Save()
{
bmp.Save(path,imageFormat);
}
For the close function the forms have a FormsClosing event that you could call you save from there

You need to not put the drawing code in pnl1_MouseMove against a new Graphics you get from pnl1.CreateGraphics();. You need to do one of two things.
1) Keep a list of all the "shapes" that need to be drawn and redraw, then subscribe to the event pn1.Paint += pn1_Paint and have that paint method go through the list of all the shapes you have recorded and re draw them
or
2) Don't paint to the Graphics object for the panel, call CreateGraphics on a Bitmap you have in the class then have that bitmap drawn as the background of pn1.
The benefit of method 2 is it will allow most of your code to be the same, you are now just drawing against a bitmap instead of directly against the panel.

you are going to need a method like this one for the 2nd part of your question :
public void SaveBitmap(string location)
{
Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap((int)myPanel.Width, (int)myPanel.Height);
DrawToBitmap(bmp, new Rectangle(0, 0, myPanel.Width, myPanel.Height));
using (FileStream saveStream = new FileStream(location + ".bmp", FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
{
bmp.Save(saveStream, ImageFormat.Bmp);
}
}
If you want to handle it when she closes the window, use the Closing event in the Window.

C# drawing on picturebox, not persistent

I have a List<> object, "imagelist", that contains the paths of many images such as .png's. Now, with the following code:
private void paint_picture(PictureBox picture, string pathofpic)
{
Graphics g = picture.CreateGraphics();
Bitmap drawnpic = null;
if (imagelist.ContainsKey(picture.Name))
{
drawnpic = new Bitmap(pathofpic);
g.DrawImage(drawnpic, 0, 0, picture.Size.Width, picture.Size.Height);
imagelist[picture.Name] = pathofpic;
}
drawnpic.Dispose();
g.Dispose();
}
I call this every time the card's image is changed, but I can't seem to make the image persist on the picturebox, when I drag the picturebox across the form (for example, over other pictureboxes). The click and drag code is just moving the picturebox with the mouse, not really relevant.
I've tried invalidating the form when I de-select the image, but it doesn't do anything.
Is there something I'm missing? Screenshot below, I dragged one image around the form and it overwrote the other images it moved across:

That’s how painting works – you have to handle its Paint event and keep painting the same thing each time it needs repainting.
What you can do is draw on top of your original image:
Bitmap b = new Bitmap(picture.Image);
using (Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(b)) {
using (Bitmap drawnpic = new Bitmap(pathofpic)) {
g.DrawImage(drawnpic, 0, 0, b.Width, b.Height);
}
}
picture.Image = b;
Then you’d save the original image somewhere and probably use it instead of picture.Image in the new Bitmap line.
And PascalCase for method names, please. ;)

Getting the image in a PictureBox control with the lines drawn using a graphics object

I have troubles understanding how the graphics objects are drawn. Suppose to have this function:
private void DrawLineOnOverlay()
{
using (var g = pictureBox.CreateGraphics())
{
g.DrawLine(OverlayPen, cursorStartx, cursorStarty, cursorEndx, cursorEndy);
}
}
to draw simple lines in a pictureBox control where you have already done this:
pictureBox.Image = BitmapToBeLoaded; // Load an 8-bit indexed Bitmap
My understanding is that both the image loaded and the pixel drawn using the graphics object are parte of the very same image: pictureBox.Image
but this:
Bitmap graphic = pictureBox.Image;
if (graphic != null )
{
graphic = new Bitmap (pictureBox.Image);
graphic.Save( "C:\\packed.png", ImageFormat.Png);
}
does not work: the image saved does not show the lines drawn in red over the image. Why this? What is wrong?

If you want to be able to save your drawings then you need to draw them on a surface and then save the surface. Usually, drawing on PictureBox canvas would not let you save the image because the Image class has nothing to do with drawings. Image is just an abstract class on top of Bitmap which is able to load a GDI+ supported image file and then present it in PictureBox. Drawings are done on a GDI+ drawing surface which is Graphics object.
You can create a surface:
Bitmap surface = new Bitmap(640, 480);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(surface);
using (var OverlayPen = new Pen(Color.Red))
{
g.DrawLine(OverlayPen, cursorStartx, cursorStarty, cursorEndx, cursorEndy);
}
If you want to show drawings, you can set Surface as PictureBox's image. And remember to use using pattern when you are creating graphical objects like pens or brushes because if you don't they're going to stay on memory all the way to the end of the context and they may cause overflow at some points.
To save then:
surface.Save( "C:\\packed.png", ImageFormat.Png);

Drawing in Winforms

I have written this code, however, it doesn't work. Not only will this not work, but none of the methods I have tried for drawing have worked. I've spent more than an hour or two trying to solve this, but to no success. Ive tried simple programs where all it does is display a small line, but it wont work no matter what i do :c
What am I doing wrong, or what could cause this?
private void pictureBox1_MouseDown(object sender,
MouseEventArgs m,
EventArgs e,
PaintEventArgs q)
{
if (m.Button == System.Windows.Forms.MouseButtons.Left)
{
Point currpoint = System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position;
Point origin = new Point(0, 0);
decimal sizee = nud.Value;
int size = Convert.ToInt32(sizee);
Random randonGen = new Random();
Color randomColor = Color.FromArgb(randonGen.Next(255),
randonGen.Next(255),
randonGen.Next(255));
Pen selPen = new Pen(randomColor, size);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(pictureBox1.Image);
g.DrawLine(selPen, 3, 3, 133, 133);
}
}

Try adding a
pictureBox1.Invalidate();
call.

This is not the right way to draw to a picture box:
private void pictureBox1_MouseDown(object sender,
MouseEventArgs m,
EventArgs e,
PaintEventArgs q)
{
if (m.Button == System.Windows.Forms.MouseButtons.Left)
{
Point currpoint = System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position;
Point origin = new Point(0, 0);
decimal sizee = nud.Value;
int size = Convert.ToInt32(sizee);
Random randonGen = new Random();
Color randomColor = Color.FromArgb(randonGen.Next(255),
randonGen.Next(255),
randonGen.Next(255));
Pen selPen = new Pen(randomColor, size);
using(Graphics g = pictureBox1.CreateGraphics()) // Use the CreateGraphics method to create a graphic and draw on the picture box. Use using in order to free the graphics resources.
{
g.DrawLine(selPen, 3, 3, 133, 133);
}
}
}
Btw, this method will create a temporary image which is reseted when the control is invalidated. For a more persistent drawing, you need to listen to the Paint event of the picture box and draw your graphics there.

You must draw it from image first. then attach it to pictureBox1
Bitmap canvas = new Bitmap(pictureBox1.Width, pictureBox1.Height);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(canvas);
Point currpoint = System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position;
Point origin = new Point(0, 0);
decimal sizee = nud.Value;
int size = Convert.ToInt32(sizee);
Random randonGen = new Random();
Color randomColor = Color.FromArgb(randonGen.Next(255),
randonGen.Next(255),
randonGen.Next(255));
Pen selPen = new Pen(randomColor, size);
g.DrawLine(selPen, 3, 3, 133, 133);
pictureBox1.image = canvas;

This is an old question and if anyone else has a similar problem. See below. First let's examine the Ops code.
(1) See code: The first recommended change is to keep the Pen's format simple until we have a better understanding about how the Pen actually works when drawing to graphics. Look at the Op's line where we create graphics from image which is a perfectly good example of how to directly draw ("which means to write") to the supplied bitmap by use of the bitmap's graphics context. Next, the Op provides an excellent example of the Graphics DrawLine method which can draw the defined line to the supplied bitmap.
(2) Due to missing details we have to make the following assumptions about the Op's supplied bitmap and about their method for drawing a line to the bitmap. Assuming there already exists an image inside this pictureBox1; if an image is not set the graphics we get from image will be from a null image or that each pixel will be black just as a footnote:
(a) Is the Pen's color unique to the existing bitmap and is the alpha component of the color high enough to actually see the resultant color when it's drawn (when in doubt use a unique solid color or at least set the alpha channel to 255)?
(b) This line the Op wants to draw is starting Left 3, Top 3 to Left 133 and that is 3-pixels to the right of bitmap's left side where this line has a height of 133 and as such the Pen's line size was changed to a width = 3 for demonstration purposes.
(c) The final consideration, is the pictureBox1.Size sufficient for us to see this drawn line? The line's geometry forms a rectangle similar to this RectangleF(3, 3, 3, 133) structure, so if the pictureBox1 Bounds rectangle intersects with the derived line's rectangle then the area of that intersection is where the line could be drawn and considered visible.
Before we can draw to the pictureBox1 image from graphics we must first convert the pictureBox1 image data back to a usable image type like a bitmap for example. The reason is the picture box stores only pixel data in array format and is not directly usable by GDI/GDI+ without conversion to an image type ie. bitamp, jpeg, png etc..
One can avoid this messy conversion if you handle you own painting by the way of a custom user control and by properly handling the PaintEventArgs OnPaint implementation and/or by using related graphics screen buffer context scenarios.
For those who just want the answer about what's missing:
private void button1_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Pen selPen = new Pen(Color.Red, 2); // The Op uses random color which is not good idea for testing so we'll choose a solid color not on the existing bitmap and we'll confine our Pen's line size to 2 until we know what we're doing.
// Unfortionately the picture box "image" once loaded is not directly usable afterwords.
// We need tp recreate the pictureBox1 image to a usable form, being the "newBmp", and for efficiency the bitmap type is chosen
Bitmap newBmp = new Bitmap(pictureBox1.Width, pictureBox1.Height, PixelFormat.Format32bppArgb); // Tip: Using System.Drawing.Imaging for pixel format which uses same pixel format as screen for speed
// We create the graphics from our new and empty bitmap container
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(newBmp);
// Next we draw the pictureBox1 data array to our equivelent sized bitmap container
g.DrawImage(pictureBox1.Image, 0, 0);
g.DrawLine(selPen, 3, 3, 3, 133); // Format: (pen, x1, y1, x2, y2)
pictureBox1.Image = newBmp;
// Don't forget to dispose of no longer needed resources
g.Dispose();
selPen.Dispose();
newBmp.Dispose(); // or save newBmp to file before dispose ie. newBmp.Save("yourfilepath", ImageFormat.Jpeg) or in whatever image type you disire;
}
The Op's code so far only draws a line to the bitmap's surface next if we are to "see" this change we must either save bitmap to file to be viewed later in an image viewer or we must draw the updated bitmap to our display monitor, the screen.
There are several methods with which to draw to your monitor's screen. The most common graphics contexts one could use are Control.CreateGraghics, graphics to screen method from (PaintEventArgs) and/or by using a graphics screen buffer sometimes called and used as a manual double buffered graphics context in which all is implemented by the way of DrawImage method from graphics.
The simplest solution, in this case based upon the Op's own code, is to display this newly updated bitmap using the pictureBox1 control. We'll simply update the control's image with the newly updated bitmap of course once first converted to a usage graphics image as seen in the above code descriptions.
Happy coding!

Cast Graphics to Image in C#

I have a pictureBox on a Windows Form.
I do the following to load a PNG file into it.
Bitmap bm = (Bitmap)Image.FromFile("Image.PNG", true);
Bitmap tmp;
public Form1() {
InitializeComponent();
this.tmp = new Bitmap(bm.Width, bm.Height);
}
private void pictureBox1_Paint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e) {
e.Graphics.DrawImage(this.bm, new Rectangle(0, 0, tmp.Width, tmp.Height), 0, 0, tmp.Width, tmp.Height, GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
}
However, I need to draw things on the image and then have the result displayed again. Drawing rectangles can only be done via the Graphics class.
I'd need to draw the needed rectangles on the image, make it an instance of the Image class again and save that to this.bm
I can add a button that executes this.pictureBox1.Refresh();, forcing the pictureBox to be painted again, but I can't cast Graphics to Image. Because of that, I can't save the edits to the this.bm bitmap.
That's my problem, and I see no way out.

What you need to do is use the Graphics.FromImage method, which will allow you to draw directly on the image instead of the temporary Graphics object create from within the Paint method:
using (Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(this.bm))
{
g.DrawRectangle(...);
}
Do this instead of (or in addition to) hooking the Paint method of the PictureBox. This way, you won't need to use a temporary image or Graphics object at all, and when you're finished modifying the original bitmap (this.bm) then you can invoke pictureBox1.Refresh to force the image to be re-displayed.