[thelist] If not a thumbnail?

[aardvark]

> From: "Lonnie Kraemer" <lwkraemer at earthlink.net>
[...]
> Lately, I've noticed many of these collective pages are showing only
> selective crops of the full image. What should we call these -
> "teasers"?

sure, that works... i still call 'em thumbnails...

> What might be the +/- of using "thumbnails" vs "teasers"?

i've found that thumbnails are a great way to frame an image so
that you can put focus on the subject or a particular background
object... it usually makes people want to click because they know
they're not seeing it all... it's great for friendly photos, where
exploration by your audience (friends, family, whatever) can be fun
for them...

it does not, however, present a view of the overall image, so for
someone who's looking for a particular image or subject, it can be
very frustrating... it has also confused a few users because they
think those are thumbnails of the *entire* image... sometimes they
think there's nothing else there...

in my galleries, i take an 80x80 square from some part of the
image, often an offset view of the subject (to make it more
dynamic) and sometimes i focus on something in the background
that i find interesting for funny... you can see one sample here:
http://roselli.org/photos/south_by_southwest/

sometimes i purposely arrange my thumbnails so that, together,
they make another image... note the very topmost row, and the
very bottom row, on this page -- if you squish them together, they
can be seen as one contiguous image:
http://roselli.org/photos/chimney_bluffs/

--
my latest book project:
  Web Graphics for Non-Designers
  http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904151159/evoltorg02-20
  ISBN: 1904151159