Data from SQL to a string in a useable format

How can I pull my data from my SQL db, and store it as a string so that it can be used? Specificly, I'm working with images. When the images are stored in the database, the only pre-processing that is done is: $img = addslashes(fread(fopen($userfile, "r"), filesize($userfile))); (* note: $userfile is the file identifier from my upload form.) I want to pull the data out of the database and store it in a string, so that I can use imagecopyresampled to create a thumbnail, but I just can't seem to get it to work.... please help!!!!!! Thanks, Jason