I've started using my own server and linking as an experiment from there to one property. Using a Coppermine Database which is free and Open source since about 2003/4. My hosting is £17 a year for the base account with unlimited email addresses, FTP and Web sites, One main Domain including the registration fee, Sub Domains etc then £6 a year for the CPanel which holds the Database and uses a Windows type to control and operate it and many other features.
Essentially once set up it uses the Cached Image just like described above. Normally I would not go into this much detail for this type of question but these are strange times we are in now and the normal easy approaches are getting replaced by
demands for shuge amounts of money. Therefore I offer my approach as an alternative people can set up themselves for not a lot of money. I use FreedomNames for my setup as I know the price next year will be close to the price it is this year. Those 99 cent or free offers often end up around the $50 a month eventually and some don't even include email! Be advised, the price I pay at Freedom is the price derived from about 20 years of being there.
They charge a little more for startups now and I recently needed a second Database so my Photography Club could use their own new Domain. It was about £45 a year so I added the new Domain to my base account and it's about £24 total billed to the club. they email me a month before it's due and include the invoice so it's clear which account they mean. Once payment is made online it's cleared instantly and that's it until the following year. their are many choices for hosting out there and many choices for the Database type you use, not just Coppermine. My CPanel has Coppermine and quite a few more in. I read up on Coppermine and installed it via a downloaded installer but could too have done it direct from my CPanel. My club uses Tinypics to host and auto resize pics, which was bought out by PhotoBucket. When they get around to extorting money with menaces for this I will transfer the pics to my Coppermine site and use that instead. No way will I ever pay PB.....
NOTE: My nick and image are from a company. That company allows people to use them both as long as they get permission and a licence. I have that and a certificate to prove it.
"These are not the Druids you are looking for..."