Manipulating pixels of a cv::MAT just doesn't take effect - c++

Question

The following code is just supposed to load an image, fill it with a constant value and save it again.
Of course that doesn't have a purpose yet, but still it just doesn't work.
I can read the pixel values in the loop, but all changes are without effect and saves the file as it was loaded.
Think I followed the "efficient way" here accurately: http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/doc/tutorials/core/how_to_scan_images/how_to_scan_images.html
int main()
{
Mat im = imread("C:\\folder\\input.jpg");
int channels = im.channels();
int pixels = im.cols * channels;
if (!im.isContinuous())
{ return 0; } // Just to show that I've thought of that. It never exits here.
uchar* f = im.ptr<uchar>(0);
for (int i = 0; i < pixels; i++)
{
f[i] = (uchar)100;
}
imwrite("C:\\folder\\output.jpg", im);
return 0;
}
Normal cv functions like cvtColor() are taking effect as expected.
Are the changes through the array happening on a buffer somehow?
Huge thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The problem is that you are not looking at all pixels in the image. Your code only looks at im.cols*im.channels() which is a relatively small number as compared to the size of the image (im.cols*im.rows*im.channels()). When used in the for loop using the pointer, it only sets a value for couple of rows in an image ( if you look closely you will notice the saved image will have these set ).
Below is the corrected code:
int main()
{
Mat im = imread("C:\\folder\\input.jpg");
int channels = im.channels();
int pixels = im.cols * im.rows * channels;
if (!im.isContinuous())
{ return 0; } // Just to show that I've thought of that. It never exits here.
uchar* f = im.ptr<uchar>(0);
for (int i = 0; i < pixels; i++)
{
f[i] = (uchar)100;
}
imwrite("C:\\folder\\output.jpg", im);
return 0;
}