Flower (test picture)

These web pages were all created by means of Claris Home Page version 2.0 running on our Power Macintosh 6100/80AV. A trial version of this software (for Macintosh and Windows95) can be downloaded from the Claris web site. Home Page is definitely cool; if you're thinking of setting up a web site of your own, we can recommend the product without reservation. At present, we do not use frames, but our layout relies heavily on tables. Text-based or older browsers (that cannot, for example, handle tables) were not given any special consideration. While we abstain from taking sides in the Netscape Navigator vs. Microsoft Internet Explorer debate (especially since our choice is Cyberdog!), we do expect people who visit us to have a browser of that caliber. If you are using a high-end browser and things don't look right, please let us know. Unless noted otherwise, all photographs are by Daniel and were taken with a conventional 35mm Minolta Maxxum 9000 camera. The resulting prints were then scanned using a Umax UC630 flatbed scanner.

The problem with this sort of thing is that what looks great on one platform can seem awful on another. In addition, one has to find the balance between good quality pictures that are large and take eons to download and small files that transfer in a flash but on which people look as though they had some dreadful skin disease. Our choice was to use JPEG files at 75% quality and to limit ourselves to rather small (typically 200x200 pixels) pictures at screen resolution (i.e., 72 dpi). This means that the pictures can look excellent on screen, but they are not suitable for printing. The size of a typical picture like the one above is just a few K. We consider this to be acceptably small. The people for whom these pages are designed will, we hope, put up with the download time rather than be satisfied with some splotchy gook. For best results, the pictures should be viewed with a video setting of thousands of colors. With this setting, the picture of the flower on top of this page should not show any grain, nor should there be dithered colors. The texture on the petals should be visible.

How to set your monitor to display thousands of colors: On the Macintosh, open the "Monitors" control panel and change the setting to "Thousands". Note that you may need to decrease the monitor resolution (for example, to 640x480) in order to be able to select this setting. In Windows95, right-button click on the desktop and select "Properties" from the pop-up menu; in the window that opens, select the "Settings" tab and change the Color palette to "High Color (16-bit)" (this may decrease your monitor's resolution). You may need to reboot your PC for the change to take effect. On either system, you may not be able to select 16-bit color if you don't have enough VRAM installed.   MacOS: The choice of those who have a choice! http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dkiechle/info.htm Last revision: 25 December 1996 Copyright © 1996 The Kiechles dkiechle@compuserve.com [Home] [Daniel] [Vicki] [David] [Eric] [Snoopy] [Map] [Links] [Info] [Contact] [Photos] [WM]