I'm currently offering a couple of downloadable PDF files consisting of pages 1 and 2 of a 2-page "catalog" of the flower & garden photos I'm currently offering for sale in the form of prints. There's no information regarding specific available products or prices. They're just sheets showing the actual images, along with related image numbers (0001, 0002, etc.) which will comprise part of the overall catalog numbers.

In all fairness, I should tell you that the aforementioned PDF files may take a while for you to download, especially if you have a dialup modem like the one I still use. The first file is 3.82 megabytes (almost 4 megabytes) and the second file is 2.19 megabytes.

I could have compressed the files more when creating these catalog sheets, in order to reduce download time, but I chose not to do so because I wanted to insure that the images looked their best when printed. For that matter, I think they look nicer on the computer screen than they would look if they were heavily compressed.

Once you've downloaded the aforementioned PDF files, I recommend that you save them to your hard drive. That way, you can view them even when you are not online, which is a distinct advantage in comparison with a standard web-based gallery. And of course, saving them to your hard drive means you won't have to download them again if you want to view them later on, so you'll ultimately save a lot of time by saving the files to your hard drive, if you intend to view and/or print the files again.

Unlike an HTML file, these PDF files have no navigational elements whatsoever to detract from the images themselves. If you were to take the downloaded files to a print shop such as FedEx Kinkos and make lettersize color laser prints, I think you'd be very, very impressed with the print quality. (And you're free to do that, as long as you don't try to sell the prints without my permission.)

If I could, I'd mail out really nice printed catalogs to those who asked for such catalogs, but I just can't afford to do that. Offering these high quality PDF files instead is the next best thing.

Regarding the download time, I like to think the portfolio pages are worth the wait. You'll still get them much, much faster than you would have gotten a printed catalog in the old days, when folks typically received printed catalogs by mailing off prepaid "reader response" cards and then waiting for weeks to get their catalogs.

The images on these two sheets are still "thumbnail" images, of course, but they hold up very well under extreme magnification when you zoom in on them in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Offering the same portfolio in the form of multiple pages with considerably larger individual images would have meant having a lot more pages to download.

Thank you for visiting this web site and taking the time to look at my images. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed making them!

...Mark W. Pettigrew