I wrote a little utility class that saves BitmapSource objects to image files. The image files can be either bmp, jpeg, or png. Here is the code:

public class BitmapProcessor
{
    public void SaveAsBmp(BitmapSource bitmapSource, string path)
    {
        Save(bitmapSource, path, new BmpBitmapEncoder());
    }

    public void SaveAsJpg(BitmapSource bitmapSource, string path)
    {
        Save(bitmapSource, path, new JpegBitmapEncoder());
    }

    public void SaveAsPng(BitmapSource bitmapSource, string path)
    {
        Save(bitmapSource, path, new PngBitmapEncoder());
    }

    private void Save(BitmapSource bitmapSource, string path, BitmapEncoder encoder)
    {
        using (var stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Create))
        {
            encoder.Frames.Add(BitmapFrame.Create(bitmapSource));
            encoder.Save(stream);
        }
    }
}

Each of the three Save methods work, but I get unexpected results with bmp and jpeg. Png is the only format that produces an exact reproduction of what I see if I show the BitmapSource on screen using a WPF Image control.

Here are the results:

BMP - too dark

JPEG - too saturated

PNG - correct

Why am I getting completely different results for different file types?

I should note that the BitmapSource in my example uses an alpha value of 0.1 (which is why it appears very desaturated), but it should be possible to show the resulting colors in any image format. I know if I take a screen capture using something like HyperSnap, it will look correct regardless of what file type I save to.

Here's a HyperSnap screen capture saved as a bmp:

As you can see, this isn't a problem, so there's definitely something strange about WPF's image encoders.

Do I have a setting wrong? Am I missing something?