This is your lucky day
I am in Beta testing with this Hack right now but I plan on moving it to full release quite soon. It is called viPortfolio. This hack allows each registered user to upload as many images as the Administrator has choosen. The admin can even pick the maximum file size and thumbnail width and height. It stores all the uploaded files in the database also.
The big plus is>>>> You dont' need image magick to have this. PHP comes with a graphics editing library library called GD. A little slower than ImageMagick and only supports graphics that are viewable on the internet. For this purpose GD does the trick.
I have found a lot of the less expensive web hosting sites do not install Image Magick. It is too server intensive.
I want to fix and test the install program more before I take it to final release though. Depending on the testing support I get which has been outstanding so far, we are looking at the next few days before full release.
Before you download it and try it on your server wait for version 1.1.0. This has a better install program so you won't have to do as many manual edits to get it installed. If you are good with the manual edits than you could download it now at
Beta viPortfolio and give it a shot. I believe it has already been installed and is working on around 15 different servers now so the portfolio itself is stable, the installer will be soon.