The photoURL_small and photoURL_large fields are useful for only the simplest Volusion stores, (which aren’t usually the ones worried about excess bandwidth fees).

It becomes very complicated if the store uses alternate views, swatches, and effects photo rendering in several of Volusion’s image related functions.

With that said, if a Volusion store owner plans to only use (1) photo per product, and they are willing to either turn off some image related features, (or work around some of the issues), the product photoURL fields is another way to reduce bandwidth.

Thanks again for posting — sometimes I get very tired of trying to work around Volusion’s anomalies… I appreciate anyone willing to share info here.

Randy.

If you’re just setting up your site, use Irfanview to batch-resize and rename the photos, then upload them to your external host and call them using those fields.

If you have a lot of products already and want to overhaul everything, download all your product images and upload them to the new host.

Then export your product ID’s, photoURL, photoURL_small, and photoURL_large fields to a CSV file, then use an excel formula to generate the new photoURL_small and photoURL_large fields, delete the PhotoURL column (because it can’t be imported in anyway), and import the CSV file back into Volusion.

The external URLs in the advanced option section actually overwrite the internal URL of the photo set in the Image Management section of the product creation page, so you’re all set!

Hope that helps!