Organizing Images

I am reorganizing my store...will be doing it slowly over time.

Anyway, I have 12 manufacturers (designers) at my site, and over 1,000 products already.

So, my thing is.....my image folder is getting SUPER large, and I want to organize it (If that's even possible!). I'm looking for suggestions. Right now, the images are just in the image folder, like this....

mystore/images/large/xxxx_LRG.jpg
mystore/images/medium/xxxx_MED.jpg
mystore/images/xxxx.jpg

So, i'm like to slowly organize them by designer. I'm looking for the best way to do this. Should I do a designer folder, with LRG MED subfolders, or put designer folder in the Image, LRG, and MED folders, so it would be like one of these...

mystore/images/large/designerA/xxxx_LRG.jpg
mystore/images/medium/designerA/xxxx_MED.jpg
mystore/images/designerA/xxxx.jpg

or like this.......

mystore/images/designerA/large/xxxx_LRG.jpg
mystore/images/designerA/medium/xxxx_MED.jpg
mystore/images/designerA/xxxx.jpg

Advice on this would be appreciated! I know that whatever I do, i will have to go and redirect that small image on all the current listings, so that will be done "over" time...but have a bunch of new product to put in the store, and want to start making this change with this new product.

paperthreads:

mystore/images/large/designerA/xxxx_LRG.jpg
mystore/images/medium/designerA/xxxx_MED.jpg
mystore/images/designerA/xxxx.jpg

This is NOT a suggestion - THAT is the ONLY way it will work. :D

You could also look at ImageHandler which means that all you need do is put your large images (no need for suffixes) in the images directory and forget about large/medium as your images are then resized on the fly.

I debated about using the image handler, but decided against it for now, for 2 reasons.

1. A lot of my images have a different "small" image from their medium and large. So doing an automatic creation of the other 2 image sizes wouldn't work for my site. Although, I would like the ability for it to add the watermark automatically to the image.

2. it seems really complicated to download. I have no clue about the GD or imagik (think that's what they are called!) I know just enough about my website to be able to install the zen cart, add a template, and make minor changes, after hours of scouring the files and tutorials here. When it comes to installing modifications that are more than a simple adding additional file, I mess things up! So unless I pay someone to do it, I decided to stay away from it!

Ok, I admit it, I'm VERY PHP challenged! I know just enough to possibly get me into some serious problems! And since this last upgrade/reinstall has taken me 6 days to work out all the problems, I just can't take the chance I'd mess it up! I have over 1,000 products in the store, and it took 12 hours just to transfer my download files over to the new cart!

1. is a good enough reason! :D