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The Daily Insight

How to read an image in Qt GUI?

Author

Christopher Pierce

Published Feb 20, 2026

How to read an image in Qt GUI?

The most common way to read images is through QImage and QPixmap ‘s constructors, or by calling the QImage::load () and QPixmap::load () functions. In addition, Qt provides the QImageReader class which gives more control over the process.

Why are Qt resource file images not showing when running?

The plugin loads without any warnings, but the images are missing on the navControl’s buttons. Please suggest what I’m missing!! You likely missed the Using Resources in a Library part of the The Qt Resource System chapter in Qt’s documentation. @SGaist Thanks for the suggestion.

Why is logo.png not showing in Qt?

The only possibility is that logo.png is not found when you are building the project. My suggestion is to delete the resource file, create new resource file and try. Can you check whether pixmap is null ? It will be null if pixmap is not created with given image. Also you can try with simple example with one just label and png image.

How are qimagereader and qimagewriter used in Qt?

The QImageReader and QImageWriter classes rely on the QImageIOHandler class which is the common image I/O interface for all image formats in Qt. QImageIOHandler objects are used internally by QImageReader and QImageWriter to add support for different image formats to Qt.

The most common way to read images is through QImage and QPixmap ‘s constructors, or by calling the QImage::load () and QPixmap::load () functions. In addition, Qt provides the QImageReader class which gives more control over the process.

The QImageReader and QImageWriter classes rely on the QImageIOHandler class which is the common image I/O interface for all image formats in Qt. QImageIOHandler objects are used internally by QImageReader and QImageWriter to add support for different image formats to Qt.

How to write custom image format handler in Qt?

Qt’s plugin mechanism can also be used to write a custom image format handler. This is done by deriving from the QImageIOHandler class, and creating a QImageIOPlugin object which is a factory for creating QImageIOHandler objects. When the plugin is installed, QImageReader and QImageWriter will automatically load the plugin and start using it.

What’s the best way to save an image in Qt?

Likewise, Qt provides the QImageWriter class which supports setting format specific options, such as the gamma level, compression level and quality, prior to storing the image. If you do not need such options, you can use QImage::save () or QPixmap::save () instead.