Efficiency of storing images in database?

I know that perhaps this question could go into the DB forum, but it has a web-flavour.

I am going to be involved in building quite a large web portal this year, and am quite interested in the performance issues around storing images directly into a database.
When it comes to storing images... is it better to store my images directly in the SQL database... or in folders with the path in the database? (For a large system)

I am worried that the speed of the application may be severely affected if i store the images in the db, but perhaps i am wrong...?


Your thoughts? (those that have experience in this plz)

;)

How big are these images? The main things I think aboutare:
a) the user has to dowload the image anyway.
b) am I going to be hitting the db for houndreds of images at once?
c) are these images going to be bigger than a few 100k? Let's say 600k to 1mb.
d) 100mbs from the db to the web server...

Then I say to myself if I put 1024 chars in a varchar isn't that about 1k?

Seriously though. I did this on a site, and I was storing images as jpgs biggest image about 200k. At most I was pulling about 10 at once. I honestly could not tell that it was having any big impact. But, I never got to work with the site at the level of 500 users on it at once. I think the most on it at once was like 20....

I have also been thinking about this....but also couldn't descide