Can I store images in MySQL

You'll need to save as a blob, LONGBLOB datatype in mysql will work.

Ex:

CREATE TABLE 'test'.'pic' (
    'idpic' INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    'caption' VARCHAR(45) NOT NULL,
    'img' LONGBLOB NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY ('idpic')
)

As others have said, its a bad practice but it can be done. Not sure if this code would scale well, though.

Yes, you can store images in the database, but it's not advisable in my opinion, and it's not general practice.

A general practice is to store images in directories on the file system and store references to the images in the database. e.g. path to the image,the image name, etc.. Or alternatively, you may even store images on a content delivery network (CDN) or numerous hosts across some great expanse of physical territory, and store references to access those resources in the database.

Images can get quite large, greater than 1MB. And so storing images in a database can potentially put unnecessary load on your database and the network between your database and your web server if they're on different hosts.

I've worked at startups, mid-size companies and large technology companies with 400K+ employees. In my 13 years of professional experience, I've never seen anyone store images in a database. I say this to support the statement it is an uncommon practice.