If you are using a MySql database and storing images greater than 1MB in size, you will need to increase the MySql variable "max_allowed_packet" value from 1MB, which is the default value, to something bigger like 5MB.
Some instructions on changing this value can be found on the MySQL website here:
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/packet-too-large.html
This is because some images such as photos can be bigger than 1MB and MySQL is defined to only accept 1MB BLOB values by default.
