If the pictures of the baseball batter (Mark McGwire #70) and the bird (Sandhill Crane) on either side of the finalshot.com home page looked grainy, then your computer video display, like most computer video displays, is set to 256 colors which is fine for normal computer graphics, but not for photos which use millions of colors to give smooth transitions from light to dark color tones. Photos viewed at 256 colors will look grainy because those smooth transitions will be grainy and/or blotchy. In order to view the photos on this or any other web site, you should make sure you set your video display to a minimum of 65,000 colors (True Color-16 Bit), and if possible set it to 16,000,000 colors (True Color-24 Bit) which will allow you to view our photos as close to what you would see if you had the photos in your hands as we can possibly make them. Be sure to close your browser before you change you color settings and restart your browser after the color settings change or the photo colors will look really strange and distorted. For detailed Video Display Adjustments instructions below on how to change to 24 bit color.
Video Display Adjustments
You adjust your color settings by double clicking on your "Control Panel" which is usually found in "My Computer" in Win 95 , Win 98, or Win NT and in the "Main Group" in Win 3.xx. When "Control Panel" opens up double click on the "Display" icon (Video tab in Win 3.11) and when it opens up click on the "Settings" tab. Under the "Color Palette" on the "Settings Tab" choose the option for "High Color 16 Bit" (65,000 colors) or, if possible, to "True Color 24 Bit" (16,000,000 colors) which is the best setting to view any photo. This may drop your screen resolution to 800x600 or lower if there is not enough memory on your video card, but have no fear the process is easy to reverse when you are done viewing the photos. In Win 95 and Win 98 your "Display Settings" may give you two choices: Reboot your computer or Note: I have run into some Diamond video cards that lockup Netscape browsers at the "True Color" setting. This is not serious, just close Netscape and reduce your color settings in the "Display" icon to the 65,000 color setting, and email Diamond Multimedia with a complaint. Diamond doesn't think this is a serious problem! Now sit back and enjoy the photos. They will be as close to the real photo on your monitor as is possible. Please print this page by mouse clicking on the print icon in your browser.
One way to see what effect the "Display-Setting-Colors" settings will have without making a permanent change to you settings is look at the rainbow color bar which is below the text that tells you what your color setting is in the Settings Tab of you Display window. If your setting is 256 colors you will see dots where each color changes to the next color on the rainbow bar. If you were at either the True Color 16 Bit or High Color 24 Bit setting, the rainbow bar would show much smoother transitions from color to color. You can now imagine what a 256 color setting is doing to every photo you are viewing on your computer whether or not you are on the internet. Every time there are shadows on a uniform from normal wrinkles, or an arm blocking the lights from the ceilings, or any other place there are gradual color changes you can understand why the colors will look spotty, grainy, or blotchy. We urge you to change your Color Setting to True Color to be able to view our photos so that they will be as close to what you would see if you were looking at the photo itself as we can make them.