Right now I use imgur.com to host all my images, but I'd rather host them myself. While it might be nice to have some things like description fields, all I really need is the direct image link to be accessible in a web browser. What's the easiest way to use my DigitalOcean VPS as an image host? Keeping in mind it's running CentOS, and is one of the cheaper plans.
There is 2 ways you can do this.
1 - Create a regular site using apache or nginx. Set up a domain, set up apache or nginx with that new domain, upload images to the account folder.
2 - Second option would be to utilize a image hosting script, it will create an image hosting site just like imgur.com or flicker. There is a couple of really nice free/opensource scripts out there one of them is Chevereto chevereto newest version 3.X.X is not longer free but any 2.X.X version is and still being used by a lot of people. Here is also a link to a tutorial of how to install it. Another script that you can check out is CF Image Hosting. Both of this scripts provide you with descriptions, and other nice features.
Hope this helps. If you need further assistance let us know
Good Luck!
If you don't need thumbnails nor formatting, then can you just use a web server like apache?