I've seen a huge number of related questions, but none of them actually answer the question, and many just use code snippets out of context with undefined variables.
I need to store images in a database (which to the best of my knowledge I should do using Base64 encoded strings), and use them as Image objects in the android code.
From what I've worked out, I need to convert the Image to a Bitmap, then Bitmap can be turned into a Base64 string. But I can't for the life of me work out how to convert the Image into a Bitmap. Any help is appreciated.
EDIT: While other questions do convert an image from a file location to a string, I don't have a file location. The image is stored solely as an instance of android.media.Image, and I don't know how to access that using a file path or anything similar.
EDIT 2: Okay, so here's my setup: the images will be stored in Firebase database as Base64 encoded strings. When I need them, I will pull the string from there and convert it into an Image object, which is just a variable I have temporarily. They are never stored locally, the only time they're on the actual app they are the Image object.