problems with thumbnails on product list pages

Hi.. I am hoping someone will be able to help me. The Zencart I am in charge of is running Zencart 1.3.8 and it's almost ready to go live but, I am having an issue with the display of thumbnails on the pages and sections that display the list of products (new for the month, category listings etc).

I have read the tutorial about images in Zencart, and am well versed in resizing images in photoshop etc. The tutorial states

NOTE: the basic "images" (thumbnails, normal-size images) should be uploaded via admin in the usual way via the product-edit screen, and then FTP should be used for uploading your _MED and _LRG images, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

In the admin panel, only one image can be uploaded per product. When I upload the thumbnail sized image, it shows this as the 'larger image' on the product information page. If I try to upload a larger image, it attributes that as the image for that product instead and the thumbnail disappears - this means that HTML resized versions of the large image show up in list of products and this takes time to load.

I have tried renaming the large images to image_LRG.jpg and uploading them to the 'large' image folder and uploading a small thumbnail size image in the edit product section of the admin but this means the thumbnail size image becomes the image for that product. This also happens when I upload the large image to the main image folder.

Obviously I am doing something wrong but I don't know what.

What are your designations in admin > config > images for

Product Info - Image Medium Suffix  	_MED 
Product Info - Image Large Suffix         _LRG

What are your image names - a sample of a couple
What type of server are you on?

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=224

The image suffix's are _MED and _LRG. It's a linux server (shared)

If anyone wants to take a look - this is the item I have been trying to test thumbnail images on;

http://calicocottagecrafts.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6_31&products_id=82

It is now showing an extra image underneath the description. The only way I could get a different sized image to appear as the 'thumbnail' in the list of products, is upload a smaller resized version (button13.jpg) in the admin / edit products section and then manually upload a larger image with buttons13 prefix to the images folder.

Is this how it is meant to look? Because I don't like it. I think it's confusing and customers will be inclined to click on the image to the left of the description which shows a tiny resized image, think the image is too small to make an informed choice, and then leave the page.

I have tried renaming the large images to image_LRG.jpg and uploading them to the 'large' image folder and uploading a small thumbnail size image in the edit product section of the admin but this means the thumbnail size image becomes the image for that product.
I do not see where you have a large image for this???
When i navigate directly to
http ://calicocottagecrafts.com/images/large/buttons13_LRG.jpg
There is no image there
Also your product page is loading the small image and if you created a medium by default that one would be loading

Did you read the tutorial?
upload to images the small from thr admin
FTP the others to medium and large respectively

Yes, I know that the product page is loading the small image by default. I uploaded the thumbnail image with the edit product page in admin, as that is the only way I have been able to get a small image to show as a thumbnail when you click on a category listing.

If I upload a large image with the edit product page, it will show a HTML resized version of the large image on the category listing page which defeats the purpose because the images take too long to load.

As I said, I have tried renaming the images to image_LRG etc but this does not fix the problem (hence why I tried other methods and the image_LRG is no longer there).

Yes I have read the tutorial.

So you are saying to upload the small image with the admin panel - the outcome of that is the link I posted. The larger image now appears underneath the description and the thumbnail is next to the description. Is this how it is supposed to look? because it does not look good to me.

As I said, I have tried renaming the images to image_LRG etc but this does not fix the problem (hence why I tried other methods and the image_LRG is no longer there).

As the tutorial describes:

Make 3 images at sizes you want as small
medium sized as you want for the page you have posted
large at something like 640X480

Follow this naming schema

small = image.jpg
med = image_MED.jpg
lrg = image_LRG.jpg

Now in the admin upload the image.jpg

Then FTP the 2 others to the
/images/medium folder
/images/large folder

Sit back and let the magic begin