i have a small bitmap image, 29x29, of a circle ball. i want to know how to make the area outside the ball transparent so you cant see it when moving across the differrent colored background. any help at all is greatly appreciated

Paint the background of the image in a specific color (e.g. magenta) and



should work (0x00ff00ff is the color that will not be drawn).

Or use SDL_image and save your images as png files with alpha channel.
http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/

Here's an easier way:

SDL_Surface *Foo = SDL_LoadBMP("Foo.bmp");
SDL_SetColorKey(Foo, SDL_SRCCOLORKEY, SDL_MapRGB(Foo->format, Red, Green, Blue));

where you replace Red, Green and Blue with the appropiate RGB value of the transparent pixel in the image.

thanks a lot guys