Cycles not opening the correct images

Support Materials and Textures
1

When using nodes in Cycles, I choose an image. It works OK if I bake onto a new image, but after a while, I tell the node to open a file… …and it loads a different image! No matter what I do, No matter where I tell it in Blender to assign an image, (in UV window or in the nodes) it just keeps reverting to previous textures! I tell it to open a texture file, I browse through, pick the file… and then BAM! The name field re-loads itself, and puts some other file right back in!! I’ve tried X ing everything out, clearing everything in every field possible so it say new and/or none… and then, I try to choose the image I want… and BAM… It assigns the other texture file! One I DID NOT CHOOSE IN ANY WAY. But it’s always the same one, so it must be some link. I AM SO CONFUSED!

It works sometimes… sometimes I choose or change an image, and it does it… but other times, I try, and it just keeps reverting to an older image… sometimes it seems to choose the images at random!

Wha in monkey balls is going on. I have also tried to find more specifics on what these fields mean, but all i find are beginner tutorials, both in the manual and online. Nothing seems to address this. I know I am majorly misunderstanding something here, or its a bug.

What is the little image icon for in the UV/image editor? I can only pick certain images from it, and it does not allow browsing.
What is the name field right of it for? I have even tried typing the name of the image in there, only to have it revert to an older, unwanted image, or add a .001.
What is the file browser for in the UV/Image Editor?

What is the little image icon in the Image texture node for? It acts just like the one in the UV/Image editor, and gives me the same headache.
Same with the name field and the file browser. They keep reverting back to the image I did not want, on their own!

It’s like there is some kind of linking going on, I don’t understand, and I’d really like to figure this out. What confuses me even more is it works as I would expect about 80% of the time. I choose a different image, it loads the different image. Cool, I think… and then an hour later… it starts fighting me… …and all hell breaks loose. I just wannna browse my images, pick the correct image, and be done. How do I break these links? How do I stop it from loading images that must be linked with a name?

I know I am making things worse by trying to name them, I just don’t get it. Is it packing or something? (I am not telling it to pack, as far as I know. Is there some kind of autopacking that is tripping me up?)

2

ok.
so finally figured it out:

I was getting confused, as i was trying to type in the name of the image file i wanted, inside the imageTexture field. I thought that was where the name of the image file itself was named/chosen/assigned.

so, as a practice, if anybody comes across this issue:

DO NOT NAME YOUR IMAGE TEXTURES AFTER THE IMAGE FILE NAME (ie texture.png). IT CAN CAUSE GREAT CONFUSION, ESPECIALLY IF YOU DONT EXACTLY UNDERSTAND HOW IT ALL WORKS!

Luckily i had misspelled one of my image textures, so i noticed the image texture was named “txture.png”, but the actual files were named “texture.png”, and this helped me figure out the difference between the two.

I came across so many confused noobs asking why their images were not showing, and many times, it was because they were getting these fields’ purpose confused.

As recap

the first icon, (looks like a little picture), allows you to choose which image texture, (NOT image file, not .png or .jpg… …the image texture which calls/uses a .png or other image file.)

the second field is the NAME of the image texture. You can rename this field, but as it is a name of the image texture, and not the image file itself. so if the image texture you named “node texture” is assigned to texture.png, and you rename it to “renamed node texture” it will still be using texture.png. IT IS ALSO GOOD PRACTICE TO MAKE EACH ONE A SINGLE USER, BY CLICKING THE NUMBER ICON NEXT TO THE “F” (fake user) ICON, UNTIL YOU COMPLETE UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN IMAGE TEXTURE AND AN IMAGE FILE… which brings the third icon…

the file browse-looking icon is where you choose the actual file to be linked to that “image texture”.