Well, I don’t know which tutorials you’re talking about… can you elaborate? (Provide a link?)
Not sure how it works on Windows, but on Linux, you’ll need to install libpng for SDL_image to be able to read .png files. Maybe this is true on Windows too.
Try making a .bmp file instead, and loading that. SDL_image can load those with no extra library support required.------------------------
Please support my free Android game, xorf (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sensemagic.gravity). It uses SDL 2.0, SDL_image and SDL_mixer.