Hmm. Actually it's a mixed bag: some of those are much larger than they appear in the gallery; if you click on them to see the full-size version do they look any better? Curious about that. I didn't want to down-size them to fit the window, hence the click-on-them suggestion at the bottom of the page. I wish there were a way to keep the preview window from expanding the smaller images, but then it wouldn't shrink the bigger ones.

I suppose my choices are live with it or shrink the preview window to the size of the smallest image in the collection. Some of them are years old and I don't have access to larger versions any longer.

Thanks for all the food for thought!

Hiya Spinny,

Actually there is another option if you're up to the task of editing your smaller sized images to add a background area that fits the gallery window. Figure out the gallery window size, create an image that size and then take your smaller images and paste them in the middle of that image. This would keep them in the proper size without messing with the gallery window size or without degrading the size of the larger images.

Just replace the files that are currently in the gallery with those new ones and you're done, much quicker I think than the alternative of changing the gallery size itself

Good point Jo Ann (see I can be nice to you, once in a while ). I think that method is more eye pleasing, than having pictures of different sizes/shapes myself.

Spinny
I have followed the comments in here about your images, and with great respect to all those who have had something to say, I feel that the images are as they should be. Let's face it - we are not talking about photographs, so we cannot expect them to behave as photographs.I assume we are talking about images (vector?) that have been created using various tools other than a camera.

When you create your gallery, just before adding your images, you can of course use the dropdown list which gives you lots of different options for your image sizes. If you don't want them to change, you just select the NO RESIZE. Inevitably there is going to be some optimization going on when the gallery is created, and as we all know well, the larger images you add to your gallery, the longer the gallery is going to take to load, and the less patient your users are going to be if they can't see it all fairly quickly. Images for internet viewing will normally only be seen at about 72 dpi (dots per inch) anyway, so that already says something about the quality.

It is often necessary to make a compromise between quality and speed - and as you will be getting visitors to your site who you don't know personally - keeping the quality lower is also a way to cut down the theft of your images on line.... just in case.

NB
For vector images, there is no equivalent of resampling an image when it is resized, and there is no PPI in the file because it is resolution independent (prints equally well at all sizes)
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-f … p006.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_per_inch
(this final link mentions plans to go over to metrication and move away from the dpi system, but I have heard nothing more on the subject, and am not aware that this would actually affect the viewing of digital images on monitor screens)

I thought carefully on everyone's input and considered my goals and options. In the end I noted that only a minority of the images were actually larger than the display window, and several of those only by a small amount. Further, the really large images, in my opinion, don't require viewing at the original high resolution to be effective (these were mostly the technical illustrations).

To that end, I examined the .xml file and saw where to edit it to turn off dynamic image resizing. Then I turned to another CC app, the PixConverter, and batch-resized anything larger than the display window so it would fit without further resizing. Viola, everything is now displayed clearly, without the dreaded jaggies.

Janys, it's true that some of my images were originally created in vector format, but of course they had to be saved in a bitmapped format for web display. The good part is, as you note, they can be resized cleanly to any resolution first, before conversion.

Thanks again for all the comments, guys, I feel my archive gallery is the better for them.

Here's the beginning of my new site done in VSD. The link don't work as I am still working on the shopping cart, etc. Any thoughts?

http://www.elionessjewelrydesigns.com

Its coming along really nicely Marilyn. I like your idea with the pendant navigation and look forward to browsing your site when its finished

I'm just wondering how you could include alternate spellings of jewellery so the site doesn't get missed with the current spelling you are using. Maybe in the keywords meta tag but that doesn't always get used by search engines.

Someone else might have some ideas.

tassietiger
As things stand, all the mentions of the word jewellery on this front page are actually images and not text, so in fact Marilyn would be wise to include both spellings of the word in her meta tags. In English speaking Europe we use the "jewellery" spelling so I suppose a lot depends on whether Marilyn intends to sell to a non-US clientele or not. But certainly both spellings in the meta tags will mean that there is more chance with the search engines as you so rightly say.

I'd say that it would be good to include it in the meta tags, even if the intended audience is NOT Europe... Might be potential European Immigrants in the US that still want to use "proper" English. Plus, it might be good to use "mis-spellings" of the keywords too. If it can be mis-spelled, people will mis-spell it, and if they do so in the searchbar they might find you instead of your competitor

It looks like you are off to a great start- my only comment would be the text on the buttons is a little hard to read..maybe if the text were outlined or in a more contrasting color?