I have done some testing at least with query. It looks like I can get what I want by doing what I have listed below. I couldn't find what determined thumbnail names but I believe that is just thumb_(filename) based upon mkpcpg_pictures. I am not sure what I would look at codewise to see how the code for how it creates the actual main page when it displays the categories, maybe catmgr.php?
Depending on if it does a query then creates the HTML for the individual category/albums I would need to do more modifications. Since all the pictures are in *_pictures and it determines the albums by aid, I am not sure how to just get the top rated for a particular album. I can limit it to 1 but then an album would show other items not in that particular album. In the example I've just had it coded to pull from album 2 as a test.
Keep in mind that I am an amateur so the coding is probably not clean and not completely correct. I still don't know where the actual code for where it creates the HTML for it and the query that it does though.
$query = $DB->query( "SELECT aid, pic_rating, filepath, filename
FROM mkpcpg_pictures
WHERE aid=2
ORDER BY pic_rating
DESC
LIMIT 1");
while ( $row = $DB->fetch_row() ) {
$album = $row['aid'];
$rating = $row['pic_rating'];
$filepath = $row['filepath'];
$filename = $row['filename'];
$output ="
<td align=\"center\" height=\"100%\" valign=\"middle\" class=\"tdblock\" style=\"padding: 5px;\">
<img src=\"images/spacer.gif\" width=\"52\" height=\"1\" class=\"image\" style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; border: none;\">
<br />
<a href=\"thumbnails.php?album=2\" class=\"albums\">
<img src=\"albums/{$filepath}/thumb_{$filename}\" class=\"image\" border=\"0\" alt=\"{$filename}\">
<br /></a>
</td>";