Since it sounds like you already know what format the byte[] array is in (e.g. RGB, ARGB, BGR etc.) you might be able to use BufferedImage.setRGB(...), or a combination of BufferedImage.getRaster() and WritableRaster.setPixels(...) or WritableRaster.setSamples(...). Unforunately both of these methods require you transform your byte[] into one of int[], float[] or double[] depending on the image format.