Some questions regarding unusual image handling

[Tigratrus]

Have a few questions for those that have the background:

Background:

We?re building a system where our members can upload images where the images are stored in the File System, but the images are tagged (in our images database)as belonging to that user and are stored in a subdirectory with the username as the folder name, I.E. if a User "Bob" uploaded images they would be stored in images/bob/. We need several categorization values specified for each image uploaded and have a working database that houses those values. Members can then use any of the images in their folder to compose articles in an article system we?re building in G.A.R.S. I HAVE a page built in Dreamweaver that does the upload, and it works fine in our old authentication system, though we?re using vB?s authentication now, which raises some issues.

I?ve got two main questions:

1) I haven't figured out how to pull the vBulletin username out in code yet. It works fine in my original authentication system but I don't know how vBulletin transfers the username, is it a session variable or a cookie? Can anyone provide an example of a code snippet to do this in PhP?

2) I need the part that allows the member to select the images from their folder that they want to use, provide a caption for each, and display them in a thumbnail strip (or similar method of display) at the bottom of the Article.

Am I totally offbase here? Is there a much easier way to go about what I?m trying to do? My partner is the design side, and she wants all the images at the bottom, not scattered around the article. We also want the images categorized and logged in the DB so that other members can run searches to find images that may be helpful to them in the design/completion of their own projects.

We?re thinking that maybe we should hire someone to help with the implementation, but I want to be as educated as possible about what we?re trying to accomplish before we start . Any suggestions/guidance would be greatly appreciated!