Storing images in your database is a fantastic idea. You then add in a mod_rewrite rule which checks for the existence of an image in the requested size (with s

Storing images in your database is a fantastic idea. You then add in a mod_rewrite rule which checks for the existence of an image in the requested size (with some accepted size format like original_filename500x200.jpg) and if it doesn't, produces and caches that size. Best of both worlds. The "size of database backups" point has been countered several times on this page effectively so I won't bother but in terms of scaling your app, restoring backups, managing versioned backups, moving your app around and a whole host of other management and maintenance related tasks, being able to completely blow away your cache of image files and have them rebuild on demand is tremendously useful. Also on the point of "storing thumbnails" this assumes that your thumbnail size requirements never change over time. Using the approach of storing the source image in a database and caching the files on demand means you can change your design and all you need to do is change the size parameters in your URLs, bam, new image thumbnail sizes.