Cannot Enlarge Images Please Help

[woodsie]

Hi,

Customers cannot enlarge images on my site some do not show up at all!

I am new to this and would appreciate any assistance!

I have enclosed my setting for images under Admin


Small Image Width 57
Small Image Height 40 Info
Heading Image Width - Admin 57 Info
Heading Image Height - Admin 40 Info
Subcategory Image Width 57 Info
Subcategory Image Height 40 Info
Calculate Image Size false Info
Image Required true Info
Image - Shopping Cart Status 1 Info
Image - Shopping Cart Width 50 Info
Image - Shopping Cart Height 40 Info
Category Icon Image Width - Product Info Pages 57 Info
Category Icon Image Height - Product Info Pages 40 Info
Top Subcategory Image Width 57 Info
Top Subcategory Image Height 40 Info
Product Info - Image Width 57 Info
Product Info - Image Height 40 Info
Product Info - Image Medium Suffix _MED Info
Product Info - Image Large Suffix _LRG Info
Product Info - Number of Additional Images per Row 3 Info
Image - Product Listing Width 100 Info
Image - Product Listing Height 80 Info
Image - Product New Listing Width 100 Info
Image - Product New Listing Height 80 Info
Image - New Products Width 100 Info
Image - New Products Height 80 Info
Image - Featured Products Width 100 Info
Image - Featured Products Height 80 Info
Image - Product All Listing Width 100 Info
Image - Product All Listing Height 80 Info
Product Image - No Image Status 1 Info
Product Image - No Image picture no_picture.gif Info
Image - Use Proportional Images on Products and Categories 0 Info
IH resize images yes Info
IH small image filetype jpg Info
IH small image background 255:255:255 Info
IH watermark small images no Info
IH zoom small images no Info
IH small image hotzone no Info
IH small image compression quality 85 Info
IH medium image filetype jpg Info
IH medium image background 255:255:255 Info
IH watermark medium images no Info
IH zoom medium images no Info
IH medium image hotzone no Info
IH medium image compression quality 85 Info
IH large image filetype jpg Info
IH large image background 255:255:255 Info
IH watermark large images no Info
IH large image compression quality 85 Info
IH large image maximum width 700 Info
IH large image maximum height 550 Info
IH watermark gravity SouthEast Info
IH zoom gravity SouthEast

[ronlee67]

First some comments:

1 - Your small image sizes 57x40 pixels are VERY small. My suggestion is they should be at least 100x100 pixels but that is entirely my opinion.

You will note that there is no setting for Product Info - Large Image width or height. You need to create that image file already sized to what size you want for your large image. This will be a separate image file from the thumbnail and Product Info images (see below for more on this).

2 - I highly recommend setting 'Calculate Image Size" to true (1). When you set this to true you will need to set either the width or height of all image size configurations to 0. I suggest you set the height to whatever you want and set the width to 0. That way the system will calculate the appropriate width for you so if you have a variety of pictures of different height to width ratios they will come out all the same height but the width will be adjusted to avoid distorting the picture.

3 - When your customer clicks on "large image" the system looks for an image in your /images/large folder with _LRG as the last part of the filename before the file type suffix. For example, if you have a product image called /images/widget.jpg then you should also have an image file /images/large/widget_LRG.jpg. You should also have one called /images/medium/widget_MED.jpg.

Each of these "should" be sized before uploading to your server. For instance, I chose to standardize my images as follows: small = 100x100 pixels, medium = 200x200 pixels and large = 400x400 pixels. You don't have to have them exactly the right size because with 'Calculate Image Size' set to true the system will automatically resize them. However, your store will display significantly better quality images if they are already sized.

So in practice, I shoot my pictures at a much higher resolution in the camera, load them into PhotoShop (there are many other photo manipulation programs you can also use), do whatever cropping or color correction and other photo manipulation I want and then save the image 4 times. The first time I save it as is (this will be my working original to save on my harddrive.) Then I use PhotoShop to resize the image to 400x400 and save it as filename_LRG.jpg (.gif or whatever). Next I resize the image to 200x200 and save it as filename_MED.jpg, and finally I resize to 100x100 and save this thumbnail image as filename.jpg. I then upload each file to appropriate directory on the server ( eg: widget.jpg to /images/widget.jpg, widget_MED.jpg to /images/medium/widget_MED.jpg and widget_LRG.jpg to images/large/widget_LRG.jpg.) I will then have three images of this product on my server (small, medium and large). Note, it important that the image identifier portion of the filename (as shown in red above) be exactly the same for all three files in a set.

When you create a product listing you need only specify the thumbnail image (the small image without either a _MED or _LRG suffix ..ie: widget.jpg in the example above.) Once that is set, the system will automatically look for the matching medium and large pictures in the corresponding server subdirectories. The thumbnail image will appear in the product listings, the medium image will appear on the product info page and large images will appear when one clicks on the 'larger image' links.

If this seems confusing, take a look at the various tutorials on images. Open this link: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php and enter "image" in the search box. The result will list a number of excellent articles on this subject.

You have a number of settings listed that are not in the basic ZenCart v1.3.8a which I suspect are for an add-on contribution you may have installed. In particular I notice a lot of settings starting with IH. If you have an image add-on it's possible that even after following the info above you may still have to make some adjustments with the add-on settings to get things working right.

[ronlee67]

Just an additional comment related to my reply:

ZenCart will always display widget.jpg in the absence of a a corresponding medium or large image. So if you don't have a widget_MED.jpg file in the /images/medium directory then ZenCart will display widget.jpg from the /images directory on the Product Info page.