Example KML for displaying a photo image from the local disk

Recently I had to generate some Google Earth KML files for displaying photos from a local hard drive in a Placemark balloon. In order to display local images not from a web server, the file keyword must be used with 3 forward slashes in the HTML img tag followed by the full path of the photo file, as shown in the example KML code below.

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>  
 <kml>  
  <Document>  
   <name>Example of displaying a local image file</name>  
   <Placemark>  
    <name>Monaco</name>  
    <Snippet>Photo 1</Snippet>  
    <description><![CDATA[  
 <img src='file:///c:\temp\monaco\IMG_5523.jpg' width='400' /><br/&gt;  
 Photo taken from near the palace in Monaco<br/>  
 ]]>  
 </description>  
    <Point>  
     <coordinates>7.421630,43.731459</coordinates>  
    </Point>  
   </Placemark>  
  </Document>  
 </kml>  

The following screenshots show how this KML file is rendered in Google Earth.

 When the Placemark is clicked, the balloon pops up showing the local photo image file.