Reading an image file into bitmap from sdcard, why am I getting a NullPointerException?

The MediaStore API is probably throwing away the alpha channel (i.e. decoding to RGB565). If you have a file path, just use BitmapFactory directly, but tell it to use a format that preserves alpha:

BitmapFactory.Options options = new BitmapFactory.Options();
options.inPreferredConfig = Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888;
Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(photoPath, options);
selected_photo.setImageBitmap(bitmap);

or

http://mihaifonoage.blogspot.com/2009/09/displaying-images-from-sd-card-in.html

It works:

Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(filePath);

Try this code:

Bitmap bitmap = null;
File f = new File(_path);
BitmapFactory.Options options = new BitmapFactory.Options();
options.inPreferredConfig = Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888;
try {
    bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(new FileInputStream(f), null, options);
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}         
image.setImageBitmap(bitmap);