Doing anything with images is a cascading nightmare. Thankfully the ratio of images to text in the articles I've written in Latex has heavily favored text and after a while you gather a collection of snippets for displaying images in a few common ways.

> getting text to flow around images

In general, either your images are too large when compared to the text column length, or you're trying to force text around an image when it doesn't belong there.

Usually, type-setting principles tend to place figures at the top of the page or in dedicated pages, the later due to its cost-cutting advantages. Somehow, people assume that an indeterminate-size figure can be placed anywhere without it affecting the text's readability

I like having pictures in a text, and exactly where they are referenced. If an image is not necessary for the text, then leave it out, or put it into the annex.