*If you are using a Sony or similar newer model LCD flatscreen monitor, I highly recommend setting your screen on gamma 3. It makes a rather large difference in your ability to create contrast. Also, my Sony screen stretches my pictures vertically, requiring me to correct this using the pitch control. If you also find this problem, just take your pitch to a higher number. You will probably have to re-center your screen as well, if you do this.

Monitor differences are so great, in contrast and color, that it is impossible to create a standard webimage. My images looked better on my old CRT screen, but what are you gonna do? Each user must correct for his computer, and most users can't do this regarding fine art, especially fine art they may never have seen in person. This is just one more reason that the web poses a danger for judging art.

I created this site at 800 x 600 resolution, even though a majority of my readers are at 1024 x 768 or higher, as I am. It is better to have extra space on the right side of the screen than to have to use the horizontal scrollbar all the time. I may resize the site at some time in the future, but for now this is the best compromise, I think. Besides, most of my scans cannot bear any more enlargement, since they aren't good to begin with. They were created from 10 year old 4 x 6 " paper photos. As my personal technology catches up to the rest of world, I will be able to post more large-format images. For now you must learn to enjoy the semi-Luddite charm of a website created at near zero-cost by a tech-allergic web novice.

You must understand that this Sony monitor I am talking about is my first computer-related purchase in my life, and I only bought it to save my eyes from the old 13" CRT I had been working on for 7 years. Up to now I have been "blessed" with a hand-me-down Gateway from my parents, one of those entry-level models that came with AOL and other pre-installed viruses. It also came with a simplified photoshop rip-off program that I still treat liked a hated stepchild. I admit that I remain highly conflicted about the computer, and normally have to cross myself and say a few paternosters before I turn it on. Mainly I treat it as a typewriter with an incredible appetite for electricity, and I turn it off every chance I get, contra the advice of my tekkie friends.

Before you blame me too much for my backward attitudes, remember that I do have some worthwhile projects I am kicking forward. It is not like I am begging off learning photoshop so that I can master PS2 instead, or the finer points of Simpson's trivia, or something. It is just possible that my time has been better spent than those whose public relations are pixel-polished. And it may be that my money was better spent on frames and white lead and old books than on software and hardware. Think about it.