Validate image from file in C#

Question

I'm loading an image from a file, and I want to know how to validate the image before it is fully read from the file.

string filePath = "image.jpg";
Image newImage = Image.FromFile(filePath);

The problem occurs when image.jpg isn't really a jpg. For example, if I create an empty text file and rename it to image.jpg, an OutOfMemory Exception will be thrown when image.jpg is loaded.

I'm looking for a function that will validate an image given a stream or a file path of the image.

Example function prototype

bool IsValidImage(string fileName);
bool IsValidImage(Stream imageStream);

Answer 1

here is my image check. I cannot rely on file extensions and have to check the format on my own. I am loading BitmapImages in WPF from byte arrays and don't know the format upfront. WPF detects the format fine but does not tell you the image format of BitmapImage objects (at least I am not aware of a property for this). And I don't want load the image again with System.Drawing only to detect the format. This solution is fast and works fine for me.

public enum ImageFormat
{
    bmp,
    jpeg,
    gif,
    tiff,
    png,
    unknown
}

public static ImageFormat GetImageFormat(byte[] bytes)
{
    // see http://www.mikekunz.com/image_file_header.html  
    var bmp    = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("BM");     // BMP
    var gif    = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("GIF");    // GIF
    var png    = new byte[] { 137, 80, 78, 71 };    // PNG
    var tiff   = new byte[] { 73, 73, 42 };         // TIFF
    var tiff2  = new byte[] { 77, 77, 42 };         // TIFF
    var jpeg   = new byte[] { 255, 216, 255, 224 }; // jpeg
    var jpeg2  = new byte[] { 255, 216, 255, 225 }; // jpeg canon

    if (bmp.SequenceEqual(bytes.Take(bmp.Length)))
        return ImageFormat.bmp;

    if (gif.SequenceEqual(bytes.Take(gif.Length)))
        return ImageFormat.gif;

    if (png.SequenceEqual(bytes.Take(png.Length)))
        return ImageFormat.png;

    if (tiff.SequenceEqual(bytes.Take(tiff.Length)))
        return ImageFormat.tiff;

    if (tiff2.SequenceEqual(bytes.Take(tiff2.Length)))
        return ImageFormat.tiff;

    if (jpeg.SequenceEqual(bytes.Take(jpeg.Length)))
        return ImageFormat.jpeg;

    if (jpeg2.SequenceEqual(bytes.Take(jpeg2.Length)))
        return ImageFormat.jpeg;

    return ImageFormat.unknown;
}

Answer 2

Using Windows Forms:

bool IsValidImage(string filename)
{
    try
    {
        using(Image newImage = Image.FromFile(filename))
        {}
    }
    catch (OutOfMemoryException ex)
    {
        //The file does not have a valid image format.
        //-or- GDI+ does not support the pixel format of the file

        return false;
    }
    return true;
}

Otherwise if you're using WPF you can do the following:

bool IsValidImage(string filename)
{
    try
    {
        using(BitmapImage newImage = new BitmapImage(filename))
        {}
    }
    catch(NotSupportedException)
    {
        // System.NotSupportedException:
        // No imaging component suitable to complete this operation was found.
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}

You must release the image created. Otherwise when you call this function large number of times, this would throw OutOfMemoryException because the system ran out of resources, and not because the image is corrupt yielding an incorrect result, and if you delete images after this step, you'd potentially be deleting good ones.

Answer 3

JPEG's don't have a formal header definition, but they do have a small amount of metadata you can use.

• Offset 0 (Two Bytes): JPEG SOI marker (FFD8 hex)
• Offset 2 (Two Bytes): Image width in pixels
• Offset 4 (Two Bytes): Image height in pixels
• Offset 6 (Byte): Number of components (1 = grayscale, 3 = RGB)

There are a couple other things after that, but those aren't important.

You can open the file using a binary stream, and read this initial data, and make sure that OffSet 0 is 0, and OffSet 6 is either 1,2 or 3.

That would at least give you slightly more precision.

Or you can just trap the exception and move on, but I thought you wanted a challenge :)

Answer 4

Well, I went ahead and coded a set of functions to solve the problem. It checks the header first, then attempts to load the image in a try/catch block. It only checks for GIF, BMP, JPG, and PNG files. You can easily add more types by adding a header to imageHeaders.

static bool IsValidImage(string filePath)
{
    return File.Exists(filePath) && IsValidImage(new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read));
}

static bool IsValidImage(Stream imageStream)
{
    if(imageStream.Length > 0)
    {
        byte[] header = new byte[4]; // Change size if needed.
        string[] imageHeaders = new[]{
                "\xFF\xD8", // JPEG
                "BM",       // BMP
                "GIF",      // GIF
                Encoding.ASCII.GetString(new byte[]{137, 80, 78, 71})}; // PNG

        imageStream.Read(header, 0, header.Length);

        bool isImageHeader = imageHeaders.Count(str => Encoding.ASCII.GetString(header).StartsWith(str)) > 0;
        if (isImageHeader == true)
        {
            try
            {
                Image.FromStream(imageStream).Dispose();
                imageStream.Close();
                return true;
            }

            catch
            {

            }
        }
    }

    imageStream.Close();
    return false;
}

Answer 5

You can do a rough typing by sniffing the header.

This means that each file format you implement will need to have a identifiable header...

JPEG: First 4 bytes are FF D8 FF E0 (actually just the first two bytes would do it for non jfif jpeg, more info here).

GIF: First 6 bytes are either "GIF87a" or "GIF89a" (more info here)

PNG: First 8 bytes are: 89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A (more info here)

TIFF: First 4 bytes are: II42 or MM42 (more info here)

etc... you can find header/format information for just about any graphics format you care about and add to the things it handles as needed. What this won't do, is tell you if the file is a valid version of that type, but it will give you a hint about "image not image?". It could still be a corrupt or incomplete image, and thus crash when opening, so a try catch around the .FromFile call is still needed.