have a look at this function I use to create bitmap headers for a screen capture.
Code:
PBITMAPINFO CreateBitmapInfoStruct(HWND hWnd, HBITMAP hBmp)
{
BITMAP bmp;
PBITMAPINFO pbmi;
WORD cClrBits;
// Retrieve the bitmap color format, width, and height.
GetObject(hBmp, sizeof(BITMAP), (LPSTR)&bmp);
// Convert the color format to a count of bits.
cClrBits = (WORD)(bmp.bmPlanes * bmp.bmBitsPixel);
if (cClrBits == 1)
cClrBits = 1;
else if (cClrBits <= 4)
cClrBits = 4;
else if (cClrBits <= 8)
cClrBits = 8;
else if (cClrBits <= 16)
cClrBits = 16;
else if (cClrBits <= 24)
cClrBits = 24;
else cClrBits = 32;
// Allocate memory for the BITMAPINFO structure. (This structure
// contains a BITMAPINFOHEADER structure and an array of RGBQUAD
// data structures.)
if (cClrBits != 24)
pbmi = (PBITMAPINFO) GlobalAlloc(LPTR, sizeof(BITMAPINFOHEADER)+sizeof(RGBQUAD)*(1<< cClrBits));
// There is no RGBQUAD array for the 24-bit-per-pixel format.
else
pbmi = (PBITMAPINFO) GlobalAlloc(LPTR, sizeof(BITMAPINFOHEADER));
// Initialize the fields in the BITMAPINFO structure.
pbmi->bmiHeader.biSize = sizeof(BITMAPINFOHEADER);
pbmi->bmiHeader.biWidth = bmp.bmWidth;
pbmi->bmiHeader.biHeight = bmp.bmHeight;
pbmi->bmiHeader.biPlanes = bmp.bmPlanes;
pbmi->bmiHeader.biBitCount = bmp.bmBitsPixel;
if (cClrBits < 24)
pbmi->bmiHeader.biClrUsed = (1<<cClrBits);
// If the bitmap is not compressed, set the BI_RGB flag.
pbmi->bmiHeader.biCompression = BI_RGB;
// Compute the number of bytes in the array of color
// indices and store the result in biSizeImage.
// For Windows NT, the width must be DWORD aligned unless
// the bitmap is RLE compressed. This example shows this.
// For Windows 95/98/Me, the width must be WORD aligned unless the
// bitmap is RLE compressed.
pbmi->bmiHeader.biSizeImage = ((pbmi->bmiHeader.biWidth * cClrBits +31) & ~31) /8 * pbmi->bmiHeader.biHeight;
// Set biClrImportant to 0, indicating that all of the
// device colors are important.
pbmi->bmiHeader.biClrImportant = 0;
return pbmi;
}