Does sending an image as a byte[] increase download speed?

Does sending and image as a byte[] download faster than sending it as a BitmapImage? Assume I'm only downloading开发者_高级运维 one image to a client application. Is this helpful or do I need to compress the image in order for it to download faster?

EDIT: I'm using downloading an image file through a WCF service.

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Whether you send it as a byte or as a BitmapImage, the number of bytes sent will be the same. Or at least so close to the same as not to make a difference. The only way you're going to increase the speed is by reducing the number of bytes sent, typically by compressing the image.

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What kind of transport are you using? That's important. Generally though, when moving something over the wire it must be serialized, usually to a byte array. So you might save yourself the added step of serializing the BitmapImage instance, but transmission speed will remain the same.