diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index d06837c..4090083 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ Suggests:
     testthat (>= 3.0.0)
 Config/testthat/edition: 3
 Imports: 
+    base64enc,
     crayon,
     glue,
     httr2,
diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index b4e5c1c..1db4b1b 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ export(delete_message)
 export(embed)
 export(embeddings)
 export(generate)
+export(image_encode_base64)
 export(insert_message)
 export(list_models)
 export(prepend_message)
diff --git a/R/utils.R b/R/utils.R
index 06d275b..fb89d5b 100644
--- a/R/utils.R
+++ b/R/utils.R
@@ -180,6 +180,28 @@ resp_process_stream <- function(resp, output) {
 
 
 
+#' Read image file and encode it to base64.
+#'
+#' @param image_path The path to the image file.
+#'
+#' @return A base64 encoded string.
+#' @export
+#'
+#' @examples
+#' image_path <- file.path(system.file('extdata', package = "ollamar"), "image1.png")
+#' image_encode_base64(image_path)
+image_encode_base64 <- function(image_path) {
+    img_raw <- readBin(image_path, "raw", file.info(image_path)$size)
+    return(base64enc::base64encode(img_raw))
+}
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
 
 
 
diff --git a/_pkgdown.yml b/_pkgdown.yml
index e6ace5c..ff2af29 100644
--- a/_pkgdown.yml
+++ b/_pkgdown.yml
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ reference:
     desc: Functions that are useful for working with the Ollama API
     contents:
       - resp_process
+      - image_encode_base64
       - create_message
       - append_message
       - prepend_message
diff --git a/inst/extdata/image2.png b/inst/extdata/image2.png
deleted file mode 100644
index aeb3bd5..0000000
Binary files a/inst/extdata/image2.png and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/man/image_encode_base64.Rd b/man/image_encode_base64.Rd
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2415b0d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/man/image_encode_base64.Rd
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+% Generated by roxygen2: do not edit by hand
+% Please edit documentation in R/utils.R
+\name{image_encode_base64}
+\alias{image_encode_base64}
+\title{Read image file and encode it to base64.}
+\usage{
+image_encode_base64(image_path)
+}
+\arguments{
+\item{image_path}{The path to the image file.}
+}
+\value{
+A base64 encoded string.
+}
+\description{
+Read image file and encode it to base64.
+}
+\examples{
+image_path <- file.path(system.file('extdata', package = "ollamar"), "image1.png")
+image_encode_base64(image_path)
+}