Why do you need to read the content of a directory using a db? It is possible to read directories using command opendir:

opendir DIR, $dir;
while ($file = readdir DIR) {
    if ($file =~ /\.jpg$/) {
        push @images, { 'image' => $file };
    }
}
closedir DIR;
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I didn't understand what kind of drop-down thingy you need :) drop-down menus? HTML? Tk? I know only some HTML and here is what I would do using HTML::Template:

use HTML::Template;

$t = HTML::Template->new(filename => 'dropdown.tmpl');
$t->param(IMAGES => \@images);
print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n", $t->output;
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Now, you need a template like this:

<form action="">
<select name="images">
<TMPL_LOOP IMAGES>
<option><TMPL_VAR image></option>
</TMPL_LOOP>
</form>
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I think that these lines of code are enough to start your work; the Monastery is full of this examples. Please don't forget to begin your script with few magic words:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use vars qw($my $vars $are $here);
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Ciao, Valerio

Disclaimer: please note that this code wasn't tested and is not approved by other monks.