We report the use of heat pulses to image the spatial distribution of electron-hole liquid (EHL) produced by either cw or pulsed Nd: yttrium aluminum garnet laser excitation. The transmission of phonons through the EHL cloud is observed as the probe pulses are scanned in two dimensions. In contrast to previous phonon-absorption work, the scattering of the fast transverse-acoustic phonons ($\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{\mathrm{q}}\ensuremath{\parallel}〈110〉$) is found to be quite strong. For cw clouds 2 mm in diameter, 35% of the probe phonons were scattered or absorbed. For the clouds excited by a high-energy $Q$-switched pulse, up to 60% of the phonon beam was attenuated. This is nearly all of the phonons which can satisfy energy and momentum conservation, indicating that the pulsed cloud has a much larger filling factor than that of a cw cloud. Interpretation of the large absorption requires the inclusion of hole-phonon scattering, which has not been previously considered. Time-resolved phonon-absorption images show that during the laser pulse the liquid expands at near-sonic velocity. After the pulse, electron-hole droplets are driven for millimeters by the action of a phonon wind, consistent with the results of recent luminescence studies. There is no evidence in the absorption profiles of a large, long-lived source of phonons (Hensel-Dynes hot spot). Additional time- and space-resolved heat-pulse experiments indicate that the long tail ($\ensuremath{\tau}=5\ensuremath{-}10$ \ensuremath{\mu}sec) in the heat-pulse signal is not due to localized storage of phonons. Instead it is ascribed to elastic and inelastic scattering of the phonons within the bulk of the sample.