Post some code outlining the problem, that way you can really get some help on it. The remainder of this post is a complete shot in the dark...
the classpath and all things associated with it (like manifests) are a ripe pain at first, but once you get them, they're cake.
your null pointers are possibly because the image's path is not in the classpath, that is if you're loading from the classpath (which is the easiest way to do it). Something like...
InputStream is = getClass().getClassLoader() .getResourceAsStream("bbb/to/image/in/classpath/image.png");// if (is == null) then classpath doesn't have bbb/.. in itBufferedImage myImage = ImageIO.load(is);
In that case, the folder (or jar, which is a bit more complex) that contains bbb/ needs to be in your classpath. If bbb/ is in the folder myProject/, then your classpath needs to be some equivalent of
someJar.jar:anotherJar.jar:/some/lib/dir:myProject
It all becomes second nature after a while, once you see how the JVM's using and interpreting the classpath.
[edited by - tortoise on October 8, 2003 2:11:25 AM]