Image vs Bitmap in C#

The key distinction between the Image and Bitmap classes is that the Image class is an abstract base class.

Being an abstract class means that you cannot directly create an instance of an Image object. If you try the following:

var image = new Image();  // This will cause a syntax error

You'll encounter a compile-time error. However, you can easily create an instance of the Bitmap class:

var bitmap = new Bitmap();  // This works fine

You only need to use the Image class when you want to write functions that can handle different types of image objects (such as Bitmap, Metafile, or Icon) and return them to the same calling code. For most use cases, such as editing images, manipulating pixels, or generating new images, the Bitmap class is the simplest and most straightforward option to start with.