Don't confuse bitmaps with .bmp files. Tk bitmaps and xpm files are handled differently from regular images like Bitmap( .bmp), jpgs, pngs, etc. Here is a basic bitmap (Tk terminology) usage:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Tk;

my $mw = MainWindow->new;
$mw->geometry('-5-0');
#$mw->overrideredirect(1);

my @color = qw/red green/;

my $bits = pack("b8"x8,
"...11...",
"..1111..",
".111111.",
"11111111",
"11111111",
".111111.",
"..1111..",
"...11...",);

$mw->DefineBitmap('indicator' => 8,8, $bits);

my $label = $mw->Label(
              -bitmap=>'indicator', 
          -bg=>'black',
          -fg=>'red',
          )->pack;

$mw->repeat(500,sub{$label->configure(
                               -fg=>$color[0]);
                               @color=reverse(@color);
 });

MainLoop;
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To load any standard image type( bmp gif jpg png) you first load the image into a Photo object, then specify the Photo object in your widget's image option. Don't forget that gif and bmp are the only ones included by default, so you need use Tk::JPEG and use Tk::Png. Here is your basic image on a canvas.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use Tk;
use Tk::JPEG;

my $file   = "zen16.jpg";
my $mw  = Tk::MainWindow->new;
my $can = $mw->Canvas( -width => 320, -height => 240 )->pack();

# if you are pulling your image from data (inline base64encoded string
# you may need to specify -format
#my $img = $mw->Photo( -data => $data, -format => 'jpeg' );

my $img = $mw->Photo( -file => $file);
$can->createImage( 0, 0, -image => $img, -anchor => 'nw' );

my $red = $can->createRectangle(0, 20, 50, 75, -fill => 'red');

$can->Tk::bind("<Button-1>", [ \&print_xy, Ev('x'), Ev('y') ]);

MainLoop();

sub print_xy {
 # print "@_\n";
  my ($canv, $x, $y) = @_;
  print "(x,y) = ", $canv->canvasx($x), ", ", $canv->canvasy($y), "\n"
+;
  printf "%6.6X\n", $img->get($canv->canvasx($x), $canv->canvasy($y) )
+;
}
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