Creating mask with CGImageMaskCreate is all black (iphone)

Question

I\'m trying to create an image mask that from a composite of two existing images.

First I start with creating the composite which consists of a small image that is t

Answer 1

I tried the same thing with CGImageCreateWithMask, and got the same result. The solution I found was to use CGContextClipToMask instead:

CGContextRef mainViewContentContext;
CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace;

colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();

// create a bitmap graphics context the size of the image
mainViewContentContext = CGBitmapContextCreate (NULL, targetSize.width, targetSize.height, 8, 0, colorSpace, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast);

// free the rgb colorspace
CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);    

if (mainViewContentContext==NULL)
    return NULL;

CGImageRef maskImage = [[UIImage imageNamed:@"mask.png"] CGImage];
CGContextClipToMask(mainViewContentContext, CGRectMake(0, 0, targetSize.width, targetSize.height), maskImage);
CGContextDrawImage(mainViewContentContext, CGRectMake(thumbnailPoint.x, thumbnailPoint.y, scaledWidth, scaledHeight), self.CGImage);


// Create CGImageRef of the main view bitmap content, and then
// release that bitmap context
CGImageRef mainViewContentBitmapContext = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(mainViewContentContext);
CGContextRelease(mainViewContentContext);

// convert the finished resized image to a UIImage 
UIImage *theImage = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:mainViewContentBitmapContext];
// image is retained by the property setting above, so we can 
// release the original
CGImageRelease(mainViewContentBitmapContext);

// return the image
return theImage;