Hi Sheepguy.
I
am a newbie, but on the subject of making thumbs, just in case it's useful, I use "ezthumbs" from -
http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/index.php and find it to be just right for easy thumbnail creation.
Feel free to check out some of my freesites at
http://www.pynio.com/pynio_sites.html. They're not to everyone's taste, but they almost always get listed and make me a few sales here and there.