It would look something like this:
UIImage *image = self.theImage;
CGImageRef imageRef = [image CGImage];
NSUInteger width = CGImageGetWidth(imageRef);
NSUInteger height = CGImageGetHeight(imageRef);
CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
NSMutableData *data = [[NSMutableData alloc] initWithCapacity:height * width * 4];
unsigned char *rawData = data.mutableBytes;
NSUInteger bytesPerPixel = 4;
NSUInteger bytesPerRow = bytesPerPixel * width;
NSUInteger bitsPerComponent = 8;
CGContextRef context = CGBitmapContextCreate(rawData, width, height,
bitsPerComponent, bytesPerRow, colorSpace,
kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast | kCGBitmapByteOrder32Big);
CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);
CGContextDrawImage(context, CGRectMake(0, 0, width, height), imageRef);
CGContextRelease(context);
int byteIndex = (bytesPerRow * 0) + 0 * bytesPerPixel;
If you want to manipulate the data, you iterate through byteIndex
. Hope that's what you are looking for.