I haven't personally tried any method other than converting the bmp to .c , but I found a couple of links that might shed some light:
UBootSplashScreen < DULG < DENX
http://boundarydevices.com/displaying-a-splash-screen-with-u-boot/
Best regards,
Sergio
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In the latest uboot ie 2013 , I used bmp tools avaiable in Tools/ to display the splash image but the same thing didnt worked with uboot 2009.