Is it nessecary to display a array of bytes without converting to HBITMAP

[william3711]

I followed a tutorial to load a bitmap from file and convert it to a array of bytes to access it directly. Now to display the bitmap on screen do I have to convert it to a HBITMAP or can I display it from the array of bytes?

Also the program I am building is a calendar program and I need to know if I can manipulate the bitmaps pixels in the byte array (e.g change color and resize image)

here is the code to load the bitmap

BYTE* Sprite2::LoadBMP(int* width, int* height, long* size, LPCTSTR bmpfile )
{
	BITMAPFILEHEADER bmpheader;
	BITMAPINFOHEADER bmpinfo;
	DWORD bytesread;

	HANDLE file = CreateFile(bmpfile,GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ,
		0, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_FLAG_SEQUENTIAL_SCAN, 0);
	if(0 == file)
		return 0;

	if(ReadFile ( file, &bmpheader, sizeof( BITMAPFILEHEADER),
		&bytesread, 0 ) == false )
	{
		CloseHandle (file );
		return 0;
	}

	if( ReadFile ( file, &bmpinfo, sizeof ( BITMAPINFOHEADER ),
		&bytesread, 0 ) == false )
	{
		CloseHandle ( file );
		return 0;
	}

	if( bmpheader.bfType != 'MB' )
	{
		CloseHandle( file );
		return 0;
	}

	if( bmpinfo.biCompression != BI_RGB )
	{
		CloseHandle( file );
		return 0;
	}

	if( bmpinfo.biBitCount != 24 )
	{
		CloseHandle( file );
		return 0;
	}

	*width = bmpinfo.biWidth;
	*height = abs (bmpinfo.biHeight);
	*size = bmpheader.bfSize - bmpheader.bfOffBits;

	BYTE* Buffer = new BYTE[ *size ];

	SetFilePointer ( file, bmpheader.bfOffBits, 0, FILE_BEGIN );

	if( ReadFile (file, Buffer, *size, &bytesread, 0 ) == false)
	{
		delete [] Buffer;
		CloseHandle( file );
		return 0;
	}

	CloseHandle( file );
	return Buffer;

}