Load images from an Access database in C#

The post Save images in an Access database in C# explains how to save images in an Access database. This post explains how to load images from an Access display them.

Like previous examples, this program uses a SQL statement of the form SELECT * FROM Books WHERE... to select a record from the database. It uses the following code to display the image stored in the returned record’s CoverImage field.

Bitmap bm = BytesToImage((byte[])reader["CoverImage"]);
picCover.Image = bm;

This code simply fetches the data in the CoverImage field, casts it into an array of bytes, and passes it to the BytesToImage method to convert the bytes into a Bitmap. The following code shows the BytesToImage method.

// Convert a byte array into an image.
private Bitmap BytesToImage(byte[] bytes)
{
    using (MemoryStream image_stream = new MemoryStream(bytes))
    {
        Bitmap bm = new Bitmap(image_stream);
        image_stream.Close();
        return bm;
    }
}

This method creates a MemoryStream associated with the byte array. It creates a new Bitmap passing its constructor the MemoryStream, and returns the Bitmap.