title: When is it safe (or mandatory) to use Image.flush()?
body: <p>I've been giving my first steps with images and buffered images in Java (and Java itself) and I'm a little confused about the flush() method, and My question is quite simple: When is it safe or even mandatory to flush an image in the code?</p>
  
  <p>Doing some tests it looks like Image.flush() doesn't do anything, but BufferedImage.flush() gives some random results (sometimes some memory seems to be freed), but the component I use to paint it stops painting it on it's background.</p>
  
  <p>So should I ever use Image.flush() or BufferedImage.flush() or is that something that I have to let the JVM do on it's own, or maybe do it in the finalize() method of an object?</p>
  
  <p>I really can't figure it out...</p>