What is the effect of encoding an image in base64?

It will be approximately 37% larger:

Very roughly, the final size of Base64-encoded binary data is equal to 1.37 times the original data size

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64

It will be bigger in base64.

Base64 uses 6 bits per byte to encode data, whereas binary uses 8 bits per byte. Also, there is a little padding overhead with Base64. Not all bits are used with Base64 because it was developed in the first place to encode binary data on systems that can only correctly process non-binary data.

That means that the encoded image will be around 33%-36% larger (33% from not using 2 of the bits per byte, plus possible padding accounting for the remaining 3%).