Convert an Image to Base64 String

Transmitting images through the network or API’s and Web service in programming is a little bit tricky. And the best way to do it is to convert images into a Base64 string. To put it simply, Base64 is an encoding schema used for interpreting binary data in a string format. This is beneficial when the storage or delivery means does not support binary data, such as when inserting an image into a database, CSS files, or HTML. One must be careful not to confuse compression with encoding. While compression actually compresses data, encoding defines how data is encoded, which brings us to the first issue. In this article, we will Convert an Image to Base64 String.

Note: Base64 encoding is not encryption. It is just done to safely transmit images or any big byte data without modification or being misinterpreted with other computer systems.

Tutorial Naming Guide

Let’s start by declaring namespaces we need for the conversion:

Image to Base64 Conversion

public string ImgToBase64(Image image, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat format)
        {
            using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
            {
                // Convert Image to byte[]
                image.Save(ms, format);
                byte[] imageBytes = ms.ToArray();

                // Convert byte[] to Base64 String
                string base64String = Convert.ToBase64String(imageBytes);
                return base64String;
            }
        }

Base64 String to Image Conversion

public Image Base64ToImg(string base64String)
        {
            // Convert Base64 String to byte[]
            byte[] imageBytes = Convert.FromBase64String(base64String);
            MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(imageBytes, 0,
            imageBytes.Length);

            // Convert byte[] to Image
            ms.Write(imageBytes, 0, imageBytes.Length);
            Image image = Image.FromStream(ms, true);
            // saving image to drive
            image.Save(@"D:\image_saving\sample.jpg");
            return image;
        }

Creating an image Object » For Testing

public string CreateImageObject()
        {
            // Create image object 
            string path = @"C:\Users\Pictures\sample.jpg";
            System.Drawing.Image img = System.Drawing.Image.FromFile(path, true);
            // Pass image parameter to Convert in Base64
            string b64 = ImgToBase64(img, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
        }

Happy Coding.

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