Comparison topics for image-handling methods

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When selecting image handling modules consider these factors:

Ease of implementation for the site designer/admin relative to their experience and skill level with Drupal.
Ease of use for content authors; is the content being created by many users, or by a smaller group that can get some training? What about photo galleries?
Will the site design dictate the size and placement of images in the display, or do we want to enable/assist users to control this within the body of their content?
Do we want to control access to certain sets of images based on user roles? Do we need better control over per-user quotas than what's offered by core?
Will we want to re-use images once they're in the system, displaying them in multiple places on the site (e.g. blog post, news item and in a gallery)?
Is batch uploading of sets of files important, or is one-at-a-time uploading good enough? Can/should we offer content authors FTP access?
Will the modules we choose continue to be actively developed and supported through future versions of Drupal so we can upgrade without having to go back and edit existing content?

Furthermore, once you start to investigate the topic further you see that "handling images" includes many different processes, both from the users' and the system's point of view:

physical files

browsing/selecting
uploading to the server
where/how they are stored

relationship between the file and Drupal's database
linking the image to the relevant piece of content (node)
specifying where you want to display it and formatting details
how the relevant module actually displays the image to the site visitor
security and performance issues

The various image-handling modules have different strengths and weaknesses in each of these areas.

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