flash image uploader returning “http error”

Basically, I don’t want to set folder permissions to 777 (since my friend’s site on the exact same hosting works fine at 755) and the mass image uploader keeps returning as “http error” regardless of file size/height/width once the image hits “crunching. Works fine uploading one by one via nonflash but would be much preferable to be able to use flash since this is a gallery site. Any ideas would be great, thanks.