caalogue or portfolio grid?

Hi Guys

I am trying to make a catalogue list similar to the one on this page:
http://www.jagged-globe.co.uk/trek/africa.html

I do not need so much information as that layout shows, but need a photo, title, description.
I have all my trips made as portfolio items, and am looking at the one-column portfolio grid
or catalogue shortcode. I would like possibly to have a sortable layout, which you can’t do with the catalogue items, right?
What would you recommend? I am having trouble with the sizes of the images in the 1-column layout – how to I control that?
I see I can set different sizes in the options manually, but with the 1-column layout they get resized and are too big.

Also – is it possible to change the circular image on the catalogue to square, or something else, and change the styling of the title,
text width, etc? Is it possible to make the catalogue from portfolio categories?

I am having lots of trouble figuring this out. Should I look at other plugins? I have done some stuff with tablepress, as you can see in the link below, but I have to put in everything manually :( and it’s not a great user interface. I’d rather use something that can use my existing portfolio categories.

thanks for your help. You can see my attempts below
nancy