Thread: How to read a text from an Image file?

I need to read a Text(Account Number) from a image file (.tif).
I tried the following approach :

 try{   								
                File newFile=new File("C:\\Image\\9R6-CCI\\09082010\\K08E091209FT_8021.tif");
	BufferedImage buffImage=ImageIO.read(newFile);
	ByteArrayOutputStream os= new ByteArrayOutputStream();		
	ImageIO.write(buffImage,IMAGE_TYPE,os);
	byte []data=os.toByteArray();
	String imageString=new BASE64Encoder().encode(data);
	}catch (Exception e){}

But it was throwing problem. After googling, I found that ImageIO has some limitation to read an editable image.
Then, I tried the following approach :

 try{File newFile=new File("C:\\Image\\9R6-CCI\\09082010\\K08E091209FT_8033.tif");
		   byte[] fileData = new byte[ (int)newFile.length()];
	   InputStream inStream = new FileInputStream( newFile);	
	  inStream.read(fileData);		
	  inStream.close();
	  String tempFileData = new String(fileData);		
	  String imageString=new BASE64Encoder().encode(fileData);				}catch (Exception e){}

But i did n't get the desired out put . The Out put is as below.
xTFMUxTFMUxTFMUxTFMUxTFMUxTFMUxTFMUxTFMUxTFMUxTFMU xTFMUxTFMUxTFMUxTFMUxTFMUx

Please, help me to address the issue.

Thanks and Regards
Gautam

The text of an image isn't stored in an easily accessible way for the computer to recognize. You'll need a text recognition algorithm to help you decipher what the text is. Do note that if the text is hand-written, or was generated to be illegible (but still readable by a human reader), you will get inaccurate results as this is still an open area of research in computer science.