How to create a managed image repository in wordpress

Have you tried NextGEN Gallery? It may not seem like it from the outset, but it really is super powerful. I just used it in a very similar project where I’ve been working on flowing 3,000 consecutive images. In addition to having dynamic gallery pages, you can easily display single images from your gallery in posts via shortcode (Or via an interface; it adds some elements to the post editors).

NextGEN itself ultimately acts as the image repository, from which you use shortcodes to display images/galleries/albums — in that order of hierarchy.

The other great thing about it is that there are a lot of other plugins that extend it, allowing you to flow your images in a ton of different ways. It also has a really straight-forward interface once you get the hang of it, and a ton of different ways to quickly upload images.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/