User-uploaded images are currently stored on the application server's local disk, which creates problems with horizontal scaling and means images are lost on every deployment. We need to migrate storage to AWS S3, update all upload handlers to stream directly to the bucket, and generate pre-signed URLs for secure image retrieval. Existing images on disk need to be bulk-uploaded to S3 as part of the migration, and a rollback plan must be prepared in case of issues during cutover.