One of the limitations we quickly noticed with this new Houston Canoe Club website was that our newsletter photos would only enlarge to a maximum size of 450 pixels, instead of being able to make photos as large as we wanted on the old web site, which was run by HCC member Fraser Baker.  A pixel is basically one small colored dot on your computer screen, and a 450 pixel image on most screens would occupy about one-third of the screen.  This image size was thought by many to be inadequate to display the sometimes dramatic photos taken by our members of our paddling exploits.

Inquiries were made to Club Express, the host of our new web site, and they offered to make a programming change to allow us to control our own image sizes, for a small fee.  The HCC board of directors voted to expend the funds to make this happen, and Club Express quickly implemented the programming change.  So with this issue of the HCC newsletter, you will get to see the results of that new photo size capability in action.

Here are a few tips on how to manage your photo viewing, in order to take advantage of the new full-screen photo images.

Thumbnail photo

Photos are inserted into the stories as "thumbnail" images - these are small copies of the photos used to represent the larger version in the text of the document.   To view the larger version of the photo, use your mouse to position your cursor over the thumbnail, then click your mouse button.  This directs the web site program to retrieve the larger image and display it on the screen on top of the previous page.

Click to enlarge

Click the image to the right to see a representation of how the click-to-enlarge image then appears.  The background text will be darkened, and the enlarged photo is now in the foreground. 

Two things can happen here, depending upon the size of your computer screen.  If the screen size is large enough to contain the large image, then you will have the large image displayed.  However, if the image is too large to fit on your screen, then you'll get only a half-size image about 580 pixels wide.  If this provides enough resolution for you to get the viewing enjoyment you want out of the photo, then you need do no more. 

But if you get the half-size image, you can take another step to see the photo in full-size of up to 1,000 pixels.  Notice that the upper right corner of the photo has a small gray box in it.  The icon is difficult to see, but the image is of four small arrows pointing outward.  This is a symbol indicating that when you click this button, the image will be enlarged.

Click "x" to remove

The image to the right shows how the image will now appear in full-resolution of up to 1,000 pixels.  I feel that this provides the best viewing experience.   Chances are that the image is only slightly larger than the capability of your screen and there will only be a small amount that is not visible.  You can use the scroll bars to move the image around and see the remainder of the photo.  You can also re-click that gray box in the top right corner, which now has four arrows all pointing towards the center, and that will re-shrink the photo back to half-size.

Once you've enjoyed the photo at whatever size suits you, then to return to the story you click the "X" in the bottom right corner of the photo to remove the photo viewing window.

Instead of clicking the "X" to remove the photo frame each time, there is another way to handle this.  You can think of the story as being one page, and the photo frame as being another page.  Both of these pages exist simultaneously, and they just switch dominance.  At first the story is in the foreground, and when you click a thumbnail to enlarge it, the photo frame becomes the foreground, while the story goes to the background.  You can switch back and forth between the two.  When a photo is displayed on top, just place your cursor over the darkened background story, and click your mouse - this will restore the story to the foreground.  Then you're ready to read some more, until you come upon another photo to enlarge, and repeat the process.

I hope that these tips will help you to accomplish your photo viewing with the greatest ease, as well as to enhance your photo viewing experience with larger, richer images.