Let's say I do a render and a final image ends up in the G buffer...

Is there a process to access each pixel and it's components (r,g,b) one row/column at a time?  I have a special project in mind...

If this is a pain, would it be possible to access an existing file in storage (something rudimentary like a bmp file...)?  Then save as another file? I'm guessing I'd open the file, read the data into an array of rows/columns, manipulate data, open a file for output and save it all... 

I know this is the gmax area, but I figure maxscript would work on both gmax and max (7 and up).

Thanks in advance... btw I'm new to maxscript but I know some C...  If somebody can point me to some existing reference for this I'd be grateful.

  andy