Welcome to Fourteeners-A Photo Journey Screen Saver. Included are the 61 color photographs from Fourteeners-A Photo Journey by Roger Edrinn.
The root of the CD-ROM contains the file: Setup.exe, which will auto start if you have that feature enabled on your computer. The Screen Saver that will automatically load is the Standard Quality version. This file is less than 10 Megabytes and is therefore suitable for all computer systems. If you have the hard disk space, you are encouraged to load the high quality version of the Screen Saver.
The 2 Directories containing the different Screen Savers are:
HighQ =High Quality (~30M)
StdQ =Standard Quality (~8M)(These files are duplicated in the root directory)
In each directory a unique Setup.exe exists. Open the desired directory (in Windows Explorer) and Double Click on Setup.exe and the setup routine will walk you through the load process. Alternatively, point to each Setup.exe in Start, Run and click OK.
The three Fourteeners spreadsheets are in the directory Excel. They can be opened in spreadsheet and/or word processors programs that read Excel files (*.xls). If you have trouble opening the spreadsheets, try the Directory: Excel_old, it contains the same spreadsheets saved in an older Excel format.
The difference between the High Quality images and the Standard Quality is the amount of compression. This compression results in inevitable image degradation. This degradation will be most apparent in constant tone areas of a photograph. The most visible artifact would be banding in the sky and/or pixelization in dark shadows. See Photo Quality, below, for strategies to improve quality.
The images were scanned in the customary 4:3 ratio of common monitors. This includes VGA (640x480), SVGA (800x600) and XGA (1024x768). Some monitors use a squarer 5:4 ratio, which will cause a thin border above and below the photos. An alternative is to display the photos at their native scanned size. Doing this will either clip the photos or cause a black border around each photo, depending on the resolution you've set on your monitor.
The font position, size and style of all captions can be changed using the Settings button in the Screen Savers tab of the Display Properties Dialog.
Photo Quality:
You can influence the perceived quality of the photos by the settings you choose for your monitor and/or video display card. The two important settings are color depth and aspect ratio, Above the Timber recommends True Color and any 4:3 aspect ratio resolution. The banding in constant tone areas is greatly affected by your choice of 8 bit (256 colors), 16 bit (High Color), or 32 bit (True Color) color depth. 8 bit color is so unsatisfactory for photographs that you are discouraged from even going there. 16 bit color will work well for most of the photographs, but blue skies without clouds will show some banding, particularly on the more compressed Screen Savers. If you use 32 bit color almost all banding will disappear, even on the most compressed photograph. An artifact of decreased color depth is that the contrast (apparent sharpness) will increase and the colors will brighten. Monitor resolution will have a modest affect on perceived image quality. Monitor resolution should be based on your typical computer uses, not the screen saver.
TV out:
The rapid convergence of the TV set and the computer makes the large screen of a TV set a seemingly compelling alternative to a small computer monitor. TV sets are inherently low resolution, high color devices. Seldom will a TV go past SVGA resolution regardless of screen size. If your computer's video card has either a composite or SVHS video output then a simple cable will allow a test. Be prepared for less saturated colors and more apparent color banding. But if you want to show the screen saver to multiple viewers at one time this still may be the best alternative.
To browse the Above the Timber web site: 1) Open your favorite web browser (Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, etc.) and 2) Type the address: E:\AboveTheTimber\index.htm into the command line (where E is the drive letter for your CD-ROM drive). The Fourteeners Discussion Forum, while on the CD-ROM, is meaningless in this context. The website content is fixed in time and is current as of the date below. For up-to-date content visit online at www.abovethetimber.com.
All photos are contained in a proprietary image container, therefore there is no access to the individual photographs. Their use is restricted to this Screen Saver. Any other use is a violation of Copyright Laws.
Why you should not copy these files. In addition to copyright laws which prohibit copying, consider that by copying these files you deny Above the Timber the revenue to generate new products. Remember that Above the Timber is in a very narrow niche market and new products can only be created if old products are successful. Many of Above the Timber's products have already been discontinued due to insufficient demand.
