Set BufferedImage alpha mask in Java

Question

I have two BufferedImages I loaded in from pngs. The first contains an image, the second an alpha mask for the image.

I want to create a combined image from the two,

Answer 1

I played recently a bit with this stuff, to display an image over another one, and to fade an image to gray.
Also masking an image with a mask with transparency (my previous version of this message!).

I took my little test program and tweaked it a bit to get the wanted result.

Here are the relevant bits:

TestMask() throws IOException
{
    m_images = new BufferedImage[3];
    m_images[0] = ImageIO.read(new File("E:/Documents/images/map.png"));
    m_images[1] = ImageIO.read(new File("E:/Documents/images/mapMask3.png"));
    Image transpImg = TransformGrayToTransparency(m_images[1]);
    m_images[2] = ApplyTransparency(m_images[0], transpImg);
}

private Image TransformGrayToTransparency(BufferedImage image)
{
    ImageFilter filter = new RGBImageFilter()
    {
        public final int filterRGB(int x, int y, int rgb)
        {
            return (rgb << 8) & 0xFF000000;
        }
    };

    ImageProducer ip = new FilteredImageSource(image.getSource(), filter);
    return Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().createImage(ip);
}

private BufferedImage ApplyTransparency(BufferedImage image, Image mask)
{
    BufferedImage dest = new BufferedImage(
            image.getWidth(), image.getHeight(),
            BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
    Graphics2D g2 = dest.createGraphics();
    g2.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
    AlphaComposite ac = AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.DST_IN, 1.0F);
    g2.setComposite(ac);
    g2.drawImage(mask, 0, 0, null);
    g2.dispose();
    return dest;
}

The remainder just display the images in a little Swing panel.
Note that the mask image is gray levels, black becoming full transparency, white becoming full opaque.

Although you have resolved your problem, I though I could share my take on it. It uses a slightly more Java-ish method, using standard classes to process/filter images.
Actually, my method uses a bit more memory (making an additional image) and I am not sure it is faster (measuring respective performances could be interesting), but it is slightly more abstract.
At least, you have choice! :-)