JSON Image Encoder (Soze)

Sometimes you don't want the key bundled with the image - you just need the encoded image as a bare string you can plug into a value socket, a text file, or any node that eats text. JSON Image Encoder (Soze) is that standalone piece: IMAGE in, one STRING out. No JSON chain involved. It's the same encoding core the chain's Image Pair uses, stripped of the name and chain_in ceremony.

You'll reach for it when the image needs to travel as text but the structure around it is already handled elsewhere - say, feeding an encoded image into a JSON Chain String Pair's value input, or into any API/text node that expects a data URI or file path on its own. It encodes the first frame of the batch; the array variant exists if you need all frames.

How it works

Identical mechanics to the Image Pair's encoder. data_uri mode produces data:image/<fmt>;base64,... (self-contained, but big - a 1MP PNG is ~1.5 MB of base64). filepath mode saves the image to disk and returns the absolute path (tiny, but the output only means something on a machine that can see that file). format picks png/jpeg/webp; jpeg_quality (default 95) only matters for jpeg and webp; save_path and append_suffix control filepath-mode naming, with an extension added automatically if you omit it.

Inputs and outputs

• image - required IMAGE input (forced). First frame is used.
• mode - data_uri or filepath.
• format - png, jpeg, or webp.
• jpeg_quality, save_path, append_suffix - optional.

Output: encoded, a single STRING - the data URI or the file path.

Installing it

Part of the Soze pack:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/SozeInc/ComfyUI_Soze.git
pip install -r ComfyUI_Soze/requirements.txt

Restart ComfyUI, or search ComfyUI_Soze in ComfyUI Manager.

Gotchas

The usual suspects: watch payload size in data_uri mode (JPEG + lower quality if the API is strict), and remember it's the first frame only. One pleasant surprise - the decoder exists on the other end, and it's permissive: JSON Image Decoder accepts this encoder's output (data URI or path) as well as URLs, JSON arrays, and newline lists, so an encode→decode round-trip through text is fully supported if you ever need to serialize an image mid-graph.