Difficulty with lineup of inner table inside a table cell

Question

I need to create a table with 1 row and 2 columns where the first cell has an inner table and the second a photo where I specify the width and let the system take care of the height. My difficulty is that I cannot get the inner table to line up at the top of the cell. To illustrate, here is the result I want:

and this is what I get

Also, this is the link to the original picture used in the example

I have tried all sorts of methods, from using \parbox and \vspace controls but after two days of reading manuals, googling and experimenting I'm admitting defeat and am now asking for help.

Here is the code which produced the badly formatted table.

\documentclass[twoside]{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{calc}

\begin{document}
\noindent
\begin{tabular} {
    |@{}p{0.5\linewidth}@{}|
    p{0.5\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}|
}
    \hline
    \begin{tabular} {
        |p{0.5\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}|
        p{0.5\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}|
    }
        Serial Number & K77C 15229\\ \hline
        Reading & 18901 \\ \hline
        Date & 08/10/2012 \\ \hline
    \end{tabular}
    & 
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{pics/DSC_3543.jpg} \\
    \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

If I put \vspace{0mm} in front of \includgraphics, the inner tables appears at the top, as desired, but then extra white space appears above the photo. Putting a negative number (e.g. \vspace{-6mm}) produces the desired effect but then the number would need to change if the inner table had 4 or 5 rows. Since these need to be generated in the hundreds, it's not practical to have to manually adjust each one.

I feel as if I'm missing something simple. Thanks to anyone who can help!

Answer 1

The adjustbox package is your friend. Moreover the inner tabular should receive the [t] placement option:

\documentclass[twoside]{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{calc,adjustbox}

\begin{document}
\noindent
\begin{tabular} {
    |@{}p{0.5\linewidth}@{}|
    @{}p{0.5\linewidth-\arrayrulewidth}@{}|
  }
  \hline
  \begin{tabular}[t] {
      p{0.5\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}|
      p{0.5\linewidth-2\tabcolsep}
  }
    Serial Number & K77C 15229\\ \hline
      Reading & 18901 \\ \hline
      Date & 08/10/2012 \\ \hline
  \end{tabular}
  &
  \adjustbox{valign=t}{\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{DSC_3543.jpg}} \\
  \hline
\end{tabular}             
\end{document}

I've also fixed some of the computations, so that you'll not have padding left and right of the image.