Im very new to processing and programming anything apart from BASIC and non linear languages like max/pd but am ready to make the leap.

I was wondering could anyone give me any pointers on how to get pixel colour data from an image loaded into an offscreen buffer so that it does not display. I though maybe i could also load an image to loadPixels without it displaying but have not found out how to do that yet either.

here is my messy first patch that probably contains a whole world of bad programming habits, any pointers would be great.

thanks for your time :)