Digium’s D80 can show pictures for the local contacts. Where does one put these in FreePBX? (or at all?)
The Digium Phones Addon for FreePBX (the php module) doesn’t understand how to push those out to phones. So if you’re using that, it won’t work. You’d have to create all of your phone config manually, to do it. Then, you’ll need to put the pictures at an HTTP URL that’s accessible by the phone. Construction of contacts is detailed here:
https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/display/DIGIUM/Contacts
As always, thanks very much Malcolm!
When I find time I’ll hack some code to default the contact picture for contacts-internal.xml to gravatar 
Btw the external contacts editor in Connectivity/Digium Phones/Phonebooks seems somewhat basic ( “last_name” isn’t written resulting in external contacts not being searchable by that). Or am I just looking in the wrong place?
No, you’re not missing anything; t’s just a very basic editor.