Added controller for returning image in response body with configuration via java class

spring-mvc-java/src/main/java/com/baeldung/spring/web/config/WebConfig.java

@@ -1,9 +1,15 @@
 package com.baeldung.spring.web.config;
 
+import java.util.ArrayList;
+import java.util.List;
+
 import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
 import org.springframework.context.annotation.ComponentScan;
 import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
 import org.springframework.core.io.ClassPathResource;
+import org.springframework.http.MediaType;
+import org.springframework.http.converter.ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter;
+import org.springframework.http.converter.HttpMessageConverter;
 import org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartResolver;
 import org.springframework.web.servlet.ViewResolver;
 import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.EnableWebMvc;
@@ -69,4 +75,25 @@ public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {
         return bean;
     }
 
+    @Override
+    public void extendMessageConverters(final List<HttpMessageConverter<?>> converters) {
+        converters.add(byteArrayHttpMessageConverter());
+    }
+
+    @Bean
+    public ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter byteArrayHttpMessageConverter() {
+        final ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter arrayHttpMessageConverter = new ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter();
+        arrayHttpMessageConverter.setSupportedMediaTypes(getSupportedMediaTypes());
+
+        return arrayHttpMessageConverter;
+    }
+
+    private List<MediaType> getSupportedMediaTypes() {
+        final List<MediaType> list = new ArrayList<MediaType>();
+        list.add(MediaType.IMAGE_JPEG);
+        list.add(MediaType.IMAGE_PNG);
+        list.add(MediaType.APPLICATION_OCTET_STREAM);
+
+        return list;
+    }
 }

spring-mvc-java/src/main/java/com/baeldung/web/controller/ImageController.java

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+package com.baeldung.web.controller;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStream;
+
+import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
+
+import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
+import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
+import org.springframework.http.MediaType;
+import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
+import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
+import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
+import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ResponseBody;
+
+@Controller
+public class ImageController {
+
+    @Autowired
+    ServletContext servletContext;
+
+    @RequestMapping(value = "/image-byte-array", method = RequestMethod.GET, produces = MediaType.IMAGE_JPEG_VALUE)
+    public @ResponseBody byte[] getImageAsByteArray() throws IOException {
+        final InputStream in = servletContext.getResourceAsStream("/WEB-INF/images/image-example.jpg");
+        return IOUtils.toByteArray(in);
+    }
+}