What’s the easiest way to preview data from an image column?

Question

I have some columns with image data type and I want to preview (or browse) the data in those tables. When I use Select top 1000 rows in SQL Server Management Studio, the value of image columns is displayed in hexadecimal. What’s the easiest way to preview those images since the hex-value is not useful to me?

PS.: database is not under my control, so changing data type is not an option.

Answer 1

If you have LinqPad installed, previewing images is simple. Query your record, convert the binary data to an image, then dump the output to the preview window.

Edit: If you aren't aware, LinqPad is a free utility that can be used for many things, such as a replacement for management studio. Most of the time I use it as a scratch pad for .Net for throw-away programs, test code, and samples.

var entity = // fetch data

using (var ms = new MemoryStream(entity.Image.ToArray()))
{
    System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(ms).Dump();
}

Here's what the result looks like: