HOW-TO: Image Preparation

Well it didn't take me long to find what was wrong.
I hadn't set the file permissions correct on the /images/cars directory, so it wasn't putting the pic in there which of course then didn't tally up with the med and large, so subdirectories all working fine now. :)

Thanks for letting us know what fixed the problem for you :)

Heheh... Ok, Dumb question here... too many trees to see the forest..

How2_Process after FTP uploading.

I"ve gone through step x step
Have the 3 directorys (2 additional ones)
images = already there
images_MED = new
images_LRG = new

Uploaded all 3 sets of images to the appropriate dirs, so all images are up now.

How do I process them...
Admin >Catelog >Categories/products >New Products
and then Browse to my harddrive to "Upload" which I've already done?

I'm guessing there isn't a way to "Batch" price assign multiple photos (my products) and I need to do each one? but what's the best way of doing all this?

just keep them on my hard drive and upload as I process each one?? or can I pull them from the server where I've already FTP'd them up...

Can I use the URL? thought that was a different link. or can I just put in:
/public_html/shoppe/images
/public_html/shoppe/images_MED

and if so, which one do I reference? reg or images _Med or images_LRG

Not sure if this note should be here or not... but seemed to be a continuation of the great help in setting this all up....
thanx..

OK - I'm a little confused, but that's not unusual.

What are the subdirectories of the image directory ment for? i.e. the microsoft, samples dvd etc. directories that get created with an install. When you edit a product you get prompted for where you want to put the file, I've been using a couple of new directories (myproducts and mycategories) shouldn't I have been doing that?

If I can do that do I need to create medium and large directories under my new ones?

Can I get rid of any of the pre-installed image subdirectories are they just there for tidyness?

The way I've done it seems to work with the images being scaled (i'll do different resolution images later), but I just cant seem to get multiple images displayed for a product (they are named item.jpg, item_01.jpg etc.). And I suspect it's my dodgy understanding of how images are dealt with in ZenCart that is at the root of that problem.

You can create your own image directories and call them whatever you like BUT you need to remember a couple of things.

Let's say you have image01.jpg and you want to store it in /myproducts. /myproducts has to live in /images, so it should be /images/myproducts.

Now, you can have 3 image sizes: small, medium, large. image01.jpg is the small one. The next size up would be image01_MED.jpg (note the change in case! It is case sensitive). You should put that one in /images/medium/myproducts. The largest image would be image01_LRG.jpg and should be in /images/large/myproducts.

What you'd end up with would be:
/images/myproducts/image01.jpg
/images/medium/myproducts/image01_MED.jpg
/images/large/myproducts/image01_LRG.jpg

HTH!

...and following up on my earlier questions,

What's the best way of processing all these images..

FTP up the _MED and _LRG

Then ADD the new product and BROWSE to upload the small thumbnailed image? One by one.. with each new product as it's added...

thanx..

That's what I usually do. I create the folders I need in /images before creating the products.

Heheh... OK, I'm feeling like a ghost here..

How do you all process the images...?? all 3 or 4 if you're setting the product up for a download 4th being a zip file in download...

afo:

You should put that one in /images/medium/myproducts. The largest image would be image01_LRG.jpg and should be in /images/large/myproducts.
A-Ha! - Thank you. I'd been using
/images/myproduct/medium/pic_MED.jpg
instead of
/images/medium/myproduct/pic_MED.jpg

As a newbie i did find this confusing. I see from browsing that there are some modules that create the other sized pics with GD (although mogrify gives much better results IMO). Are there plans that something like that gets incorporated into future versions? Along with more user friendly multiple image handling.

I haven't done anything with downloads, so I'm not really sure what you're asking. Maybe someone who's more familiar with downloads can address that for you.

Here's the deal with the images as I described them:

Let's say someone is selling artwork. He/she can upload 3 versions of the piece of art - art.jpg, art_MED.jpg and art_LRG.jpg. When a potential customer is looking at that item, ZC makes the art_LRG.jpg available automatically for "view larger image" so the customer can get a better look.

With regard to preparation, I am of the firm belief that the best results are achieved by doing ALL image editing before uploading, and saving the 3 variants at the dimensions you wish to use for display.

Ok, I'm not making me clear. I'm in "Simple" mode and just the phyiscal moving of photos up to the zencart site.

In other words.
I make the 3 copies on my hard drive.
reg = thumbnail
Med = _MED (400x600 or so)
Lg =_LRG (600x800 or so)
download = large - .zip file

What's the "BEST" way of working these files.

Do I:
FTP upload the _MED, _LRG and .zip to the appropriate folders medium, large, and download restpectively??

Leaving the reg (thumnail 200x200) still on my hard drive.

Then:
I go to set up a NEW product and UPLOAD the reg pic into the normal "IMAGES" file.

Once that is completed the NEW Product will show using the "reg (thumbnail)" image and the about product will show the _MED and the larger will show _LRG.

Then to set up the Download I have to identify the file in the NEW Product area, at the very bottom of the page. (would be nice if there was BROWSE option there)

I'm thinking that's the easiest way, but not having worked with zencart, there could be a simplier way by just uploading FTP ALL files to the appropriate directorys and the NEW Products will appear needing editing..

Thanx for any confirmation or hints..

Heheh.. I hope that helps... it's just the simple way of processing the images, what's the best way..

Sorry, for not being able to clarify...

Like afo, I've not worked with doenloads, but I assume your download.zip(s) is/are your product(s).

So as you say,

1. FTP all MED & LRG to the appropriate folder.

2. Add/edit each product through admin and use that to upload the Product thumbnail.

You can do the above in reverse order if you wish.

If you have many products, another possibility is to upload all data directly to the database - depends how comfortable you are with that side of things.

OK Ryk,
Thanks much... hehheh.. but now you've set the hook so-to-speak..
Upload to DB... using an SQL statement?? actually into the DB or just FTP into the appropriate directories...

The download.zip, I believe, is just a zipped copy of the individual photo (thats my product) in a large, high quality format. It's zipped to keep the general file size to a minimum. The Download directory is where ZenCart holds them and directs/links the customer to that file after paying for it and their ready to download it... or I believe that's the path..

Thanx for the info, would like just a hint of doing the DB thing.. otherwise, it's product by product... thanx..

With regard to db, you may want to take a look at the EasyPopulate mod in the download section (and check out the forum for info on it)

thegrafixguy:

Nice tutorial, all the basics are covered ;)
Having problems with my webmaster that set me up on zen cart & now is too busy helping others so my site is not going anywhere. do you have people that can guide me along
larry [email protected] :blink:

On the db thing:
Before I wrote an image-manager modification to handle this I uploaded all images to their proper locations and typed in the path and name of the small product image on the create/update product page. You have to select 'No' for Overwrite Files so just the DB is updated with the new path. Look at one of your existing products for examples how this path should look like. I did not deal with downloads yet so I can't comment on those.

On images in general:
If you rely very much on editing the images yourself there might be no better way dealing with image creation, and maybe EasyPopulate Ryk mentioned (didn't use it myself though) might prove useful for uploading and database.

If the small and medium images are just smaller versions of your large image, you might as well let the server do the image resizing. Please look at this thread to check out the image-manager. You'd upload one large image (the size you want for _LRG images to for example 'myproduct/pic.jpg') and the other two small/medium sized images are created automatically. All you need is a server where php has GD support (that's for the image processing) or an installation of ImageMagick on the server. You should be able to check that in admin->tools->server info if you find an entry like GD support enabled your fine. If not, you've got to use ImageMagick. It really helps with adding new products. I suppose there are many other helpful tools out there, but I did'nt find one that suited my needs, so I wrote that one. If you are going to try that, please backup your cart and database first!

Regards,
Tim

I would strongly recommend you use Tim's Image-Manager mod (see the link in the post above and be careful not to confuse it with an earlier contribution called ImageManager) if your store is in the early stages of development and you haven't already added hundreds of products with their associated images.

You will still need to prepare your images to the best quality you can - and you should probably ensure that they are all of the same dimensions if you want to be sure of a uniformity throughout your site - but you only need to prepare the largest version of your image and upload that when Adding/Editing a Product - you can forget about FTPing to medium and large folders ::tup

Ok Ryk,
That's what I'm looking for.

Luckily, I have only test images up now (early stages of Development) in trying to figure out the best processing on a continuing basis.
Tim's method makes sense, having GD already on the server and was using PhotoShop CS for the image processing - using the Web Gallery for making the thumbnails and the "_LRG" photos with the copyright across the middle.

Tim's mod seems the easiest way now. So will try to make it happen. As I now understand it, once Tim's mod is working, When I have a new product, photos for downloading, I just have to do the following:

• ADD new Product (Photos) and Browse-Upload- the larger image I'd use for showing. The GD System (already installed) will resize to thumbnail and med sized as needed

• Upload the "Downloadable Zip" file into the /download/ directory to make available for the customer to download once paid.

I can upload FTP the large images and when ADDing a NEW Product, Just put the path and file name in instead of uploading each one. I'll figure out the "PATH" to put in, as it didn't work the first time I tried it...

One day at a time eh??

Thanx both, Tim and Ryk, for the info... it helps a great deal.

On to the next one eh??

http://www.poolesdive.com/shoppe/index.php?

You have to "browse upload" every image for resizing to be done. FTPing the images won't work that way (a least it won't resize). You can still upload your three manually resized images though and set the name with selecting 'No' for Overwrite image. Just upload your high detail 'product-image.jpg' for example and the small, medium and large images are created/moved.

Regards,
Tim