Hi i am looking to either have the print album loop on an album page show the top level albums, not just the child albums of the parent album, or have the printalbummenu function show thumbnails. it is imperative to the design of my site.

[i]album page show the top level albums[/i]
There is an parameter for showing only the toplevel albums. Please see the plugin's documentation.

[i]have the printalbummenu function show thumbnails[/i]
That is not possible unless you want to modify the plugin.