While I am not familiar with that plugin, it seems to me that it is more likely the issue lies with the plugin than with some DreamHost settings (of course, I could be wrong, but I am thinking that if it was a DH setting issue, all of the images might have been impacted).
The fact that the thumbnails worked for some images, but not others, makes me suspect there may bee some difference in the images - are they all the same file type? From the same source? Maybe edited with different tools?
I think finding out why the software treated pic 3 and 4 differently than the others would be a good place to start troubleshooting. 
--rlparker