I’m in the process (a long process, BTW) of going through all of the images I’ve posted.  The intent is to do away with all of the high-resolution photographs except in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

The reason for this is threefold.

First: Hi-res pictures are terribly hard on dial-up folks and not particularly kind to those with limited bandwidth.  Because for some time I used nothing but the bandwidth-intensive monsters, even for inline images, there are a great many of the older posts that are unwieldy and practically inaccessible for some visitors.

Second: I made the terrible mistake of posting top quality images that are downloadable and printable at film quality.  That’s not exactly the best way to protect my copyright or investment of time and energy.

Third: Like the original Imhotep theme, the new theme has a certain minimum width, but it’s less than the first theme used.  That means all those pictures I uploaded that are standardized at 640×480 resolution will break the site layout for those viewing it at its smallest possible size.  This also happened on the old site but with less impact since less screen real estate was used for the theme itself (i.e., the two-column format had more wiggle room than does the present three-column format).

The main changes are that inline images (those shown in the posts themselves) will be no larger than 480×360, linked images will have a reduced PPI resolution (72 for web compatibility) and will use compression (no more than 20%), and any linked image with a size greater than 800×600 will be reduced accordingly.

All of these changes will be wholly unremarkable for most, but they should help those using slower internet connections as well as those using lower monitor resolutions.  For me, it ensures a consistent layout from beginning to end, a lack of overlapped elements on smaller screens, and knowledge that none of the images are true photo quality if they’re used contrary to my rights and wishes.