I want to make a program that identifies a shape and colour by examining an image from the camera. I plan to take a shot from the camera then examine it. I'm having some trouble finding Atl headers so I have not yet implemented the camera. Basically I'm looking for a way to open an image such that I could examine it. Right now I only have knowledge of pictures as data but I need a way of representing the data such that I can make decisions based upon the content

Image Analysis is the most used term...

There are tons of library out there for importing/exporting images. I remember using a library called CxImage when I was doing that kind of stuff.

By the way, if you are in college, I think the Matrox Imaging Library (MIL) has an academic license.