Encoding JPEG renders "blurry"

Question

I have created a java servlet that dynamically renders an image for use as a heading for each page. The servlets works fine, except for when a "background image" is used to go behind the text.
Here is what the result looks like:
http://www.mikelukenonline.com/servlets/lmp-framework?page_name=dynamicText&fontName=Old%20English%20Text%20MT&fontColor=168~167~167&shaddow=Y&fontSize=28&backgroundColor=white&text=Welcome%20to%20this%20site&width=500&x=11&y=21&height=34&backgroundImage=http://www.mikelukenonline.com/images/headings/titleblank2.jpg
One of the parameters in the URL is called "backgroundImage" which takes a URL of a jpg and draws that first. In this example, the background image is:
http://www.mikelukenonline.com/images/headings/titleblank2.jpg
Now if you look at the background image that I just listed, you see that it looks pretty clear. However, if you look at the full link above, you can see that the baclground image is "blurry" or "pixilated" - not sure the best work to describe it!
It is also worth noting that it is only when using the background image that it looks bad. If you remove the backgroundImage parameter, the text is rendered just fine:
http://www.mikelukenonline.com/servlets/lmp-framework?page_name=dynamicText&fontName=Old%20English%20Text%20MT&fontColor=168~167~167&shaddow=Y&fontSize=28&backgroundColor=white&text=Welcome%20to%20this%20site&width=500&x=11&y=21&height=34
I have tried everything I can think of and I can't get past this issue. Below are samples from the servlet. Any thoughts at all would be greatly appreciated!
This is the code that "draws" the final image:
private java.awt.Graphics.Graphics graphics = null;
private java.awt.Image.Image image = null;
private java.awt.Frame.Frame frame = null;
public Image getImage(){
     drawImage();
     if (image == null)
          image = getFrame().createImage(getWidth(), getHeight());
     return image;
private Frame getFrame() {
     frame = new Frame();
     frame.addNotify();
     return frame;
private Graphics getGraphics() {
     if ( image == null )
          image = getFrame().createImage(getWidth(), getHeight());
     if ( graphics == null )
          graphics = image.getGraphics();
     return graphics;
private void drawImage() {
     getGraphics().setColor(getBackgroundColor());
     getGraphics().fillRect(0, 0, getWidth(), getHeight());
     getGraphics().setColor(Color.white);
     if(getBackgroundImage() != null && getBackgroundImage().trim().length() > 0) {
          try {
               Frame f = new Frame();
               f.addNotify(); 
               Image im = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().createImage(new URL(getBackgroundImage()));
               MediaTracker mt = new MediaTracker(f);
               mt.addImage(im, 0);           
               mt.waitForAll();
               getGraphics().drawImage(im,0,0,null);
               im.flush();
               im = null;
               f.removeNotify();
               frame = null;
          } catch (Exception e) {}     
     Font f = null;
     try {
          f = new Font(getFontName(), Font.PLAIN, getFontSize());
     } catch (Exception e) {
          f = new Font("TimesRoman", Font.PLAIN, getFontSize());
     getGraphics().setFont(f);          
     if(showShaddow()) {
          getGraphics().setColor(new Color(229, 229, 229));     
          getGraphics().drawString(getText(),getXPos()+3,getYPos()+3);
     getGraphics().setColor(getFontColor());
     getGraphics().drawString(getText(),getXPos(),getYPos());     
}This is part of a class later that takes this image and encodes it and renders it to the browser:
public void transform(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {
     try {
          Frame frame = null;       
          Graphics graphics = null;       
          try {           
               frame = new Frame();           
               frame.addNotify();           
               MediaTracker mt = new MediaTracker(frame);
               Image image = getImage(); // returns the image from the previous code
               mt.addImage(image, 0);           
               mt.waitForAll();           
               int w = image.getWidth(frame);           
               int h = image.getHeight(frame); 
               BufferedImage offscreen = new BufferedImage(w, h, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);       
               graphics = offscreen.getGraphics();    
               graphics.drawImage(image, 0, 0, frame);           
                     graphics.dispose();
               com.sun.image.codec.jpeg.JPEGImageEncoder encoder = com.sun.image.codec.jpeg.JPEGCodec.createJPEGEncoder(response.getOutputStream());
               com.sun.image.codec.jpeg.JPEGEncodeParam param = encoder.getDefaultJPEGEncodeParam(offscreen);
               param.setQuality(1, false);
               encoder.setJPEGEncodeParam(param);   
               encoder.encode(offscreen);      
          } catch (Exception e) {
          } finally {           
               if (graphics != null) {               
                    graphics.dispose();           
               if (frame != null) {               
                    frame.removeNotify();           
               getImage().flush();
               response.flushBuffer();
     } catch (Exception e) {}
}

Answer 1

Hi,
Well, you could try fixing the memory leak in
JPEGAsyncDecoder. :)