Display images in asp.net mvc

It is possible to use a handler to do this, even in MVC4. Here's an example from one i made earlier:

public class ImageHandler : IHttpHandler
{
    byte[] bytes;

    public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
    {
        int param;
        if (int.TryParse(context.Request.QueryString["id"], out param))
        {
            using (var db = new MusicLibContext())
            {
                if (param == -1)
                {
                    bytes = File.ReadAllBytes(HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/Images/add.png"));

                    context.Response.ContentType = "image/png";
                }
                else
                {
                    var data = (from x in db.Images
                                where x.ImageID == (short)param
                                select x).FirstOrDefault();

                    bytes = data.ImageData;

                    context.Response.ContentType = "image/" + data.ImageFileType;
                }

                context.Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);
                context.Response.BinaryWrite(bytes);
                context.Response.Flush();
                context.Response.End();
            }
        }
        else
        {
            //image not found
        }
    }

    public bool IsReusable
    {
        get
        {
            return false;
        }
    }
}

In the view, i added the ID of the photo to the query string of the handler.

Make sure you image is a relative path such as:

@Url.Content("~/Content/images/myimage.png")

MVC4

<img src="~/Content/images/myimage.png" />

You could convert the byte[] into a Base64 string on the fly.

string base64String = Convert.ToBase64String(imageBytes);

<img src="@String.Format("data:image/png;base64,{0}", base64string)" />