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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-11T10:40:43+00:00

I have a question that may be simple for you to answer I have

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I have a question that may be simple for you to answer

I have an image table below

An image can have multiple sizes- is it better practice to have three tables

One table for image details
another table that joins image_details to image_paths and another table- image_sizes that joins to image paths.

Or is it best to put all the image sizes in the image table. In effect I have one image but in different sizes. Looking for the best option for optimisation. All images will have each image sizes so there is no redundancy in the future for some images not having certain sizes. I was unsure if it was best to use another table though in case we add other sizes. However i could add another column to the image table for a new image size

Image_table

CREATE  TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `warrington_main`.`image` (  
  `id` MEDIUMINT(8) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,  
  `user_id` BIGINT(20) UNSIGNED NOT NULL ,  
  `alias_title` VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL ,  
  `address_id` BIGINT(20) NULL ,  
  `geolocation_id` BIGINT(20) NULL ,  
  `camera_id` MEDIUMINT(8) NULL ,  
  `title` VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL ,  
  `description` VARCHAR(2000) NOT NULL ,  
  `main_image` VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL ,  
  `thumbnail_image` VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL ,  
  `thumbnail_image_medium` VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL ,  
  `thumbnail_image_small` VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL ,  
  `thumbnail_image_gallery` VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL ,  
  `hits` BIGINT(20) UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT '0' ,  
  `show_comment` ENUM('0','1') NOT NULL ,  
  `feature_in_gallery` ENUM('0','1') NOT NULL ,  
  `created_on` DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00' ,  
  `date_taken` DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00' ,  
  `updated_on` DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00' ,  
  `updated_by` BIGINT(20) UNSIGNED NOT NULL ,  
  `approved` ENUM('Inprocess','Yes','No') NOT NULL DEFAULT 'Inprocess' ,  
  `visible` ENUM('0','1') NOT NULL DEFAULT '0' ,  
  `account_type_created` ENUM('S','Y', 'G', 'FL', 'FB') NOT NULL ,  
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`) ,  
  UNIQUE INDEX `alias_title` (`alias_title` ASC) ,  
  INDEX `title` (`title` ASC) ,  
  INDEX `approved` (`approved` ASC) ,  
  INDEX `visible` (`visible` ASC) ,  
  INDEX `feature_in_gallery` (`feature_in_gallery` ASC) ,  
  INDEX `fk_image_image_user1_idx` (`user_id` ASC) ,  
  INDEX `fk_image_camera1_idx` (`camera_id` ASC) ,  
  INDEX `fk_image_address1_idx` (`address_id` ASC) ,  
  INDEX `fk_image_geolocation1_idx` (`geolocation_id` ASC) ,  
  INDEX `fk_image_user1_idx` (`updated_by` ASC) ,  
  CONSTRAINT `fk_image_image_user1`  
    FOREIGN KEY (`user_id` )  
    REFERENCES `warrington_main`.`user` (`id` )  
    ON DELETE NO ACTION  
    ON UPDATE NO ACTION,  
  CONSTRAINT `fk_image_camera1`  
    FOREIGN KEY (`camera_id` )    
    REFERENCES `warrington_main`.`camera` (`id` )  
    ON DELETE NO ACTION  
    ON UPDATE NO ACTION,  
  CONSTRAINT `fk_image_address1`  
    FOREIGN KEY (`address_id` )  
    REFERENCES `warrington_main`.`address` (`id` )
    ON DELETE NO ACTION  
    ON UPDATE NO ACTION,
  CONSTRAINT `fk_image_geolocation1`  
    FOREIGN KEY (`geolocation_id` )  
    REFERENCES `warrington_main`.`geolocation` (`id` )  
    ON DELETE NO ACTION  
    ON UPDATE NO ACTION,  
  CONSTRAINT `fk_image_user1`    
    FOREIGN KEY (`updated_by` )    
    REFERENCES `warrington_main`.`user` (`id` )    
    ON DELETE NO ACTION    
    ON UPDATE NO ACTION)    
ENGINE = InnoDB    
AUTO_INCREMENT = 23162    
DEFAULT CHARACTER SET = utf8
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    One table for image details another table that joins image_details to image_paths and another table- image_sizes that joins to image paths.

    This is not normalization and is referred to as Vertical Partitioning where you want the primary details of an object to be present in one table and the auxiliary details that occupy more space (in general) and are not part of general filtering criteria are moved to a different table. This is done to reduce the size of each record of the first table so that there will be more number of records in each database page and hence less number of pages to go through during filtering, less IO and faster search ability.

    In your case, it seems fine to retain all attributes of an image in a single table.

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