[Very_Good_Karma]

Genderhazard- Actually, I'd figured out how you'd done those things I liked as soon as I saw them- I was impressed because you'd thought of them to begin with. Like the facial expression in the 3rd panel- I would have tried to draw something new, but you came up with useful variations using what was there.

I'm sorry if there's still some confusion over the file management suggestions I gave- let me explain again more carefully:

Media files tend to get really big, and so the various formats for them- mp3, gif, avi, etc.- utilize compression algorithms when saving in order to produce the smallest file possible. These formats can be divided into two groups: lossy and lossless. Lossy formats approximate the data they're storing in order to squeeze even more information into each byte- sort of like cliff's notes for the media in question. Lossless formats, however, stick to algorithms that preserve every last bit of data- more like those miniature books that you need a magnifying glass to read.

Lossy formats aren't bad- mp3s are lossy, and they're universally awesome- but when you want to work with and edit media, the little bits they leave out pile up, gradually resulting in unusably low quality data. That's why you should use lossless formats for editing, and then convert to lossy when you're ready for distribution. I asked that people not convert to lossy formats because I wanted whatever they made to preserve quality until *I* could edit it.

The same reasons are behind resizing/resampling and using PNG rather than GIF: Every time you resize an image, it gets a little fuzzier. If you shrink it down, and then I shrink it up, I'm not going to get the same quality image you started with. GIF doesn't lose data to compression, but since it's limited to 256 colors you'll often have to lower the quality of an image in order to convert. Plus, lots of 'fuzzy' operations- like using an airbrush or resampling- will increase the color depth of a file, pushing your 256 color GIF over the limit; which means that you'll have to keep color dropping to keep saving. And decreasing color depth is another operation that 'approximates'.

So, you obviously have to decrease color depth once to make the animated GIF- keep it to once, then. You can resize/resample if you need to shrink an image down to managable dimensions- but as much as possible work with your original image first, then resize/resample when finished to get the desired dimensions.

"'Cropping" was just asking you not to cut off part of the image that I might need, 'cause it's a pain to paste it back in.

Oh- I should be clearer about this- I'm using Paintshop Pro 4.0, and in that program 'resizing' and 'resampling' both shrink or stretch an image to fit new dimensions, but they use completely different algorithms. I never actually use the 'resize' function, (it's awful) so I wasn't sure what to call it when asking people not to do it. I'm sorry if using both terms just further added to the confusion.

I've been holding back on showing what I've got so far with my own animation, but now that you've put your stuff out there, I guess I better put something up too. I'm gonna stop reworking the segments of my animation and put together a temporary full version from what I've got so far. I'll put it up here soon.