image url retention?

I've been using Gallery 1.4.4 for the back end of my website for a couple of years. Having nearly 600 images in one section is overloading it. It's time to switch to something more efficient.

G2 is the obvious first choice. I've been playing with it on my Mac and found one big, huge problem: it looks like every single image URL is going to change, replaced by a heavily obfuscated link to main.php.

I link to images in my gallery from outside, and would really rather just be able to grab the direct image link. I'd also like to have all the links I've posted to images in my gallery for the past few years remain usable.

Is there a switch, or template-design feature to make Gallery2 give the image unobfuscated URLs? I will be putting the data directory in areas visible to the web server, and I will certainly be building my own templates - I want to keep the existing design of my site intact. I want to be able to just right-click on an image and grab its real URL for posting in my Livejournal!