Is the IPixelCollection valid after manipulating an image?

[Raildex]

I need to read a lot of single pixels of an image and occasionally I manipulate it with .Draw

Since GetPixels() is extremely slow, I considered caching the PixelCollection instead and was wondering whether the pixel collection is valid after operations that manipulate the image.
What about the result of GetArea() in these cases aswell?
Does the Array that GetArea() returns represent a "realtime" view into the image or just a "copy" or the like?

[dlemstra]

I could possible introduce something else that would give you read only access to the pixels with a span that would give faster reading. The GetArea method now returns a copy so you should not cache this. And you should also not cache the result of GetPixels.

[Raildex]

Quickly reading pixels of different images is very crucial in my case. It would be great to have a faster alternative.