johanvandemerwe

Users that have the Genesis Theme Framework installed are already known with the Genesis Featured Page 
plugin. This extended version looks almost the same, but adds the possibility to add a thumbnail of your 
own choice. This can be any image in your media library.
To add a different image, just switch off the “Show featured image” and place the name of the image in 
the URL. To make it even easier, you just enter here the name of the image as in “take-this-picture.png”. 
The plugin makes sure that the selected format is taken from your media library.
Bonus:
With this plugin it is also possible to show the excerpt of an article (which is not in the original Genesis plugin). 
!important! For this to work you have to install the Page Excerpt Plugin by Jeremy Massel.
How to use the image URL:
without month/year in media permalinks:
/montepulciano.jpg
with/year in media permalinks:
/10/2014/montepulciano.jpg
So you use the image name + extension starting after the /uploads in the media permalink. 
Don’t use the show featured image and the Image URL at the same time. That will show the featured image set in the page.
You can find that plugin here: 
<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/page-excerpt/" rel="ugc">Link to Page Excerpt Plugin by Jeremy Massel (opens in new window)</a>

Genesis Featured Page Extended

Extends the Genesis Featured Page plugin. Show as thumbnail any image in your media library and show your page excerpt. Requires Genesis Framework.

Ron Rennick

marksabbath

StudioPress

Nathan Rice

WP Engine

esther sola

Nahuai Badiola

Nick C

Jen Baumann

Nick the Geek

OsomPress

Brian Gardner

Genesis Portfolio Pro will add a new “Portfolio” post type where you can add portfolio entries with images and galleries to show of your visual content.
The default template and styles will create a portfolio grid showing your featured images in a landscape format. These will link to a simple page where you can control the content including text, images, and even galleries.
To get started click “add new” under the new “Portfolio” menu item to add your first Portfolio entry. Simply add your images and content just like you already know how to do with posts and publish. Add a few more entries to build your portfolio archive and show off your work in an attractive grid.

Genesis Portfolio Pro

Handy plugin for adding a portfolio custom post type to your Genesis theme. Does exactly what I needed it to do. 

Rock Solid

Genesis Portfolio Pro adds all you need to allow for styled portfolios for any WordPress theme.

Genesis Featured Page Extended vs Genesis Portfolio Pro