how to color mask in c

Question

how do you color mask a 32 bit unsigned integer for the red, green, and blue values

is it like this? (color_to_be_masked>>8)

Answer 1

It depends on the format. If you only want to keep the red, and the colors are stored nibble-wise RGBA RRGGBBAA, then color & 0xFF000000 will mask out all the other colors. If you want to know the red value for that same format, (color >> 24) & 0xFF will get it.