Putting a sensor_msgs/Image into a message, getting it back, and converting it for OpenCV?

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I'm just doing this wrong somehow.

I've got a Sensor_msgs/Image already. I want to put it into my message which has "Sensor_msgs/Image image" in it's definition.

Can I just do this:

msg.image = *imgPtr;

Or do I need to do some form of deep copy? The data types are a bit too complicated for me to figure out what's going on.

Later, in a service, I want to extract that image and convert it to a IplImage* for use with OpenCV. i'm trying this:

cv_img = cv_bridge::toCvCopy(image, enc::BGR8);
IplImage img; 
img = cv_img->image;