IMO you should be storing images on the file system, and serve them
via HTTP or local file system reading - based on the security
requirements.

Can you copy/paste the set of JDBC calls you made to store and
retrieve the files in a MySQL BLOB?

-cheers,
Manish

BLOB should work for pictures.

Attached below is a small demo program that stores and
retrieves a picture in a BLOB field in MySQL.

Arne

import java.io.*;
import java.sql.*;

public class BlobTest {
   public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
      byte[] b = new byte[(int)(new File("C:\\elogo.png")).length()];
      InputStream is = new FileInputStream("C:\\elogo.png");
      is.read(b);
      is.close();
      Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
      Connection con =
DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost/Test", "", "");
      PreparedStatement ins = con.prepareStatement("INSERT INTO
BlobTest VALUES (?,?)");
      ins.setInt(1, 123);
      ins.setBytes(2, b);
      ins.executeUpdate();
      PreparedStatement sel = con.prepareStatement("SELECT Picture FROM
BlobTest WHERE ID=?");
      sel.setInt(1, 123);
      ResultSet rs = sel.executeQuery();
      rs.next();
      byte[] b2 = rs.getBytes(1);
      con.close();
      OutputStream os = new FileOutputStream("C:\\elogo2.png");
      os.write(b2);
      os.close();
   }
}