5th September 2000

You say you want a resolution? Well, you know we don't want to change the world. Scanning photos is always a blast, but trying to resize them isn't. "Funny, this family picture looked fine before. Who is that oozing blob? Grandma -- is that you?" Unless you're a family of amoebae, this can present a problem. I was thrown off track when I first encountered a Photo CD (PCD) file; nobody bothered to tell me that it can contain multiple resolutions within the same file (128x192, 256x384, 512x768, 1024x1536, 2048x3072, and sometimes 4096x6144). "Wow... much better." Note, though, that your favorite image viewer / graphics editor may not be configurable enough to see and access multiple embedded resolutions; Paint Shop Pro (from JASC.COM) will work just fine. To piggyback this tip: WMF files can be opened in a various (undefined) sizes as well. Most of your clip art is probably in this format. Even if you don't work with either of these image types regularly, you may encounter them eventually.