---
title: "ImageFileToImageContent"
id: imagefiletoimagecontent
slug: "/imagefiletoimagecontent"
description: "`ImageFileToImageContent` reads local image files and converts them into `ImageContent` objects. These are ready for multimodal AI pipelines, including tasks like image captioning, visual QA, or prompt-based generation."
---

# ImageFileToImageContent

`ImageFileToImageContent` reads local image files and converts them into `ImageContent` objects. These are ready for multimodal AI pipelines, including tasks like image captioning, visual QA, or prompt-based generation.

<div className="key-value-table">

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| **Most common position in a pipeline** | Before a `ChatPromptBuilder` in a query pipeline                                                         |
| **Mandatory run variables**            | `sources`: A list of image file paths or ByteStreams                                                     |
| **Output variables**                   | `image_contents`: A list of ImageContent objects                                                         |
| **API reference**                      | [Image Converters](/reference/image-converters-api)                                                |
| **GitHub link**                        | https://github.com/deepset-ai/haystack/blob/main/haystack/components/converters/image/file_to_image.py |
| **Package name** | `haystack-ai` |

</div>

## Overview

`ImageFileToImageContent` processes a list of image sources and converts them into `ImageContent` objects. These can be used in multimodal pipelines that require base64-encoded image input.

Each source can be:

- A file path (string or `Path`), or
- A `ByteStream` object.

Optionally, you can provide metadata using the `meta` parameter. This can be a single dictionary (applied to all images) or a list matching the length of `sources`.

Use the `size` parameter to resize images while preserving aspect ratio. This reduces memory usage and transmission size, which is helpful when working with remote models or limited-resource environments.

This component is often used in query pipelines just before a `ChatPromptBuilder`.

## Usage

### On its own

```python

from haystack.components.converters.image import ImageFileToImageContent

converter = ImageFileToImageContent(detail="high", size=(800, 600))

sources = ["cat.jpg", "scenery.png"]

result = converter.run(sources=sources)
image_contents = result["image_contents"]
print(image_contents)

# [
# ImageContent(
# base64_image="/9j/4A...", mime_type="image/jpeg", detail="high",
# meta={"file_path": "cat.jpg"}
# ),
# ImageContent(
# base64_image="/9j/4A...", mime_type="image/png", detail="high",
# meta={"file_path": "scenery.png"}
# )
# ]
```

### In a pipeline

Use `ImageFileToImageContent` to supply image data to a `ChatPromptBuilder` for multimodal QA or captioning with an LLM.

```python
from haystack import Pipeline
from haystack.components.builders import ChatPromptBuilder
from haystack.components.generators.chat import OpenAIChatGenerator
from haystack.components.converters.image import ImageFileToImageContent

# Query pipeline
pipeline = Pipeline()
pipeline.add_component("image_converter", ImageFileToImageContent(detail="auto"))
pipeline.add_component(
    "chat_prompt_builder",
    ChatPromptBuilder(
        required_variables=["question"],
        template="""{% message role="system" %}
You are a helpful assistant that answers questions using the provided images.
{% endmessage %}

{% message role="user" %}
Question: {{ question }}

{% for img in image_contents %}
{{ img | templatize_part }}
{% endfor %}
{% endmessage %}
""",
    ),
)
pipeline.add_component("llm", OpenAIChatGenerator(model="gpt-4o-mini"))

pipeline.connect("image_converter", "chat_prompt_builder.image_contents")
pipeline.connect("chat_prompt_builder", "llm")

sources = ["apple.jpg", "haystack-logo.png"]

result = pipeline.run(
    data={
        "image_converter": {"sources": sources},
        "chat_prompt_builder": {"question": "Describe the Haystack logo."},
    },
)
print(result)

# {
# "llm": {
# "replies": [
# ChatMessage(
# _role=<ChatRole.ASSISTANT: 'assistant'>,
# _content=[TextContent(text="The Haystack logo features...")],
# ...
# )
# ]
# }
# }
```

## Additional References

🧑‍🍳 Cookbook: [Introduction to Multimodality](https://haystack.deepset.ai/cookbook/multimodal_intro)
