In this tutorial i will teach you about image retrieving and saving using vb.net and MySql. To do this in C# is so simple. Remember that C# and Vb.net are all running in the same framework, only the syntax may vary. 

In this scenario i am using MySql , Visual Studio 2010 and Infragistics. To know more about infragistics follow this link http://www.infragistics.com/ . Infragistics let's you as developer make things so easy and hassle free. I am using Infragistic 10.2 for this. Anyway you can use any infragistic winform all you have to do is to upgrade this project. 

To start this project, I'd created a database 

sample  CREATE TABLE `sample` (                 
          `idno` VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL,          
          `userimg` LONGBLOB,                   
          PRIMARY KEY (`idno`)                  
        ) ENGINE=INNODB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1  

This simple exercise will be like this :

This would be the first thing to do. As you can see i have a grid with the images on it, upload and save button and 2 picture boxes which will hold the previews upon upload and grid preview. 

The 2nd phase is this. Upon clicking on the upload button, and opendialog box should appear. 















The open dialog box should be filtered into images only and this is how to do that. 
OpenFileDialog.Filter = "JPEG (*.jpg;*.jpeg)|*.jpg|PNG (*.png)|*.png" . If you want to filter all files, etc, all you have to do is to change the filter string. 

Saving image into MySql is easy. All you  have to do is to have an long blob datatype for the DB and then convert the image into byte. 

  
















    Private Sub btnSave_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnSave.Click
        Try
            Dim cmd As New MySqlCommand
            Dim SQL As String
            Dim rawData() As Byte
            Dim fs As FileStream

            fs = New FileStream(fullPath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read)
            rawData = New Byte(fs.Length) {}
            fs.Read(rawData, 0, fs.Length)
            fs.Close()
            con.Open()

            SQL = "INSERT INTO user.sample(idno, userimg) VALUES('" & txtID.Text & "', ?bin_data)"

            cmd.Connection = con
            cmd.CommandText = SQL
            'cmd.Parameters.Add("@bin_data", rawData)
            cmd.Parameters.Add(New MySqlParameter("@bin_data", rawData))
            cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
            MsgBox("Successfully saved!")
            pBox.BackgroundImage = Nothing
            grd.DataSource = previewme()
            con.Close()
        Catch ex As Exception
            con.Close()
            MsgBox(ex)
        End Try
    End Sub

This is where infragistics makes your project easy. In the grid_initializelayout event all you have to do is to set the "image" column into style = image:                        Case "userimg"
                            .Header.Caption = "User Image"
                            .Width = 50
                            .Style = Infragistics.Win.UltraWinGrid.ColumnStyle.Image

On the preview button part, i had set a 'preview' field on my query and set the field column into button in grd_initializelayout. 

//query

        "SELECT 'Preview' as action, idno,userimg FROM user.sample"

//layout
                        Case "action"
                            .Header.Caption = "Action"
                            .Width = 80
                            .Style = Infragistics.Win.UltraWinGrid.ColumnStyle.Button
                            .CellAppearance.TextHAlign = Infragistics.Win.HAlign.Center
                            .CellAppearance.TextVAlign = Infragistics.Win.HAlign.Center
                            .CellAppearance.ForeColor = Color.Blue

Download the whole source code here:

If this exercise helped you, don't forget to share, comment and like :) 

HAPPY CODING :D Cheers!!!