Larry & Judy:
This information may very well be a repeat of stuff you already know. If so just nevermind

Images that you scan have several obvious choices. Many times people will scan an image on their home scanner and do it at 300 or even greater dpi - thinking the bigger the number the better looking the pix will be. If the image is only to be used for display on a computer then you have increased the size of your image unnecessarily by using such a large DPI. Remember, the computer's monitor can only display 72/75 dpi. With that in mind you will notice that the image file size (that amount of space taken up on the hard drive and eventually your or the eBay server) will change dramaticaly depending on scanning resolution. Here is an example:

A 3x5 Image scanned at 100% using True Color at:

1200 DPI = 63.4mb
600 DPI = 15.8mb
300 DPI = 4.0mb
200 DPI = 1.8mb
150 DPI = 990.2kb
100 DPI = 440.1kb
75 DPI = 247.5kb

With those numbers you can see that it only makes sense to use either 75 or 100 DPI. Actually I find that with AW2K 100 works very well. However, all rules are made to be broken. There may very well be times when you want a larger DPI especially if you think it may be used at a later time in a brochure or some type of printed piece. Even in that case it is best to scan the image twice as long as it is available. One scan for eBay and another to be put aside for use later by the printer when they are doing your brochure.

If you are going to go to a commercial printer with your image remember that DPI should be in the 300 range for good reproduction. A rule of thumb is find out what line screen the printer will be using (i.e. 150) and double that for your DPI.

If you use a JPG image another thing to remember is that you should use the NO LOSS setting. And even if you do that, every time you resave that image there will be some loss in quality. It is best then to do all of your editing and resizing and fiddling in as few saves as possible - this will give the best of all possible images. When a jpg is saved a few pixels are thrown out with every save. Early on it isn't noticable yet as more saves are done it can be seen in loss of quality.

Sorry -- I sure didn't mean to go on and on but thought that as long as we were talking about images that this may be useful. If there are other questions let me know. I've left out a few hints 'cause it was beginning to sound a lot pompus lol - so let's quit while I'm ahead.

Garry