Abstract: A system to provide an application programming interface (API) to a client application for manipulating FlashPix-formatted files, the API having functions including 1) system management functions to initialize the client application, to indicate that API functions will be called, and to indicate that no further API functions will be called, 2) file management functions to create a new FlashPix storage, to open the FlashPix storage, to read FlashPix image data from the storage to write FlashPix image data to the storage, and to close the storage, and 3) image processing functions to adjust color, to adjust contrast, to perform filtering operations, to rotate, flip and shear, to define a rectangle of interest, and to define aspect ratio. One file management function to read FlashPix image data from the storage include a function to create a world, to place an image in the world, to define a region of interest within the placed image, and to extract data located within the region of interest.