You'll learn how to load, display, and manipulate them. If Swing icons aren't sufficient and you're writing a program for Java 2, then consider using the Java 2D API, which is described in the 2D Graphics trail. Support for using images is spread across the java.applet , java.awt , and java.awt.image packages.
Every image is represented by a java.awt.Image object.
In addition to the Image class, the java.awt package provides other basic image support, such as the Graphics drawImage methods, the Toolkit getImage methods, and the MediaTracker class. In java.applet , the Applet getImage methods make it easy for applets to load images using URLs. Finally, the java.awt.image package provides interfaces and classes that let you create, manipulate, and observe images. The Applet and Toolkit classes provide getImage methods that work for either format. While this improves performance, some programs require more control or information about image loading.