From the point of view of another Novice programmer, myself. The Standard SDK is really fairly simple to use and understand provided you have some C++ or C# experience. The SDK is not a game development platform rather it is a platform that allows you to create an interface between the headset and whatever application you are developing. All the functionality provided within the control panel is accessible in the standard sdk, and you can in fact connect directly to the control panel which eliminates the need to handle profiles within your own code.

As to thinking of an image and having it appear on screen, this is probably not possible unless it was a specific image which was associated with a cognitive action, but there has not been much success imagining a static image and it triggering a cognitive action. If you wanted to explore this idea to its furthest potential you would need the research sdk which provides access to raw eeg data from each sensor. You would have to write signal processing code, and algorithims which associate signal fragments with images again this is beyond the level of a novice programmer and certainly beyond my ability even if it is possible.