This directory contains scans of the covers of all Terry Pratchett books
currently in my possession. All the files are in 24-bit JPEG format and
exactly 800 pixels high.


 --- Copyrights and Permission 

We are in a tricky, because virtually unprecedented and unchartered, legal
area here. I don't want to sound apocalyptic, but in theory anybody caught
downloading or possessing or distributing one of these files can get sued
by Terry Pratchett, by Josh Kirby, by their publishers, or by all three.

The chances of this actually happening are suitably minuscule, fortunately,
but it is still important that we all keep in mind we are quite probably
violating multiple copyrights here.

It is with this in mind that I urgently ask everybody downloading any of
these files to only use them for their personal pleasure. Sure, make them
your startup or background screen, or give the occasional copy to your
friends, but I had rather you did not e.g. make the complete set available
on your local BBS. Or post them to alt.binaries.pictures. Or write letters
to Terry's publishers mentioning them. And whatever you do, don't *ever*
charge money for them or do anything similarly commercial.

If we keep this a purely small-time, fringe fan activity, we have the best
chance of not attracting any unwanted attention from people in Suits.


 --- Technical Discussion: How I Did It

Don't you hate those grainy, low-resolution, *ugly* GIF or JPEG pictures? I
sure do, and that's why I have taken some pains to make sure these files
are as good-looking as possible.

The best way to do this, I have found, is to first collect the maximum
amount of information available to you, and then use software to bring
things down to useable proportions.

So what I did was scan everything in as 24-bit color TIFF files at 300 dots
per inch, yielding rather insanely large files: they measured about
3000x1800 pixels for the hardcover covers and the TIFF file for the extra
large "Eric" cover was over 30 megabytes! If you then scale the images down
to 900 or 480 pixels in height, and convert the 24-bit RGB color
information to 8-bit indexed color, or to JPEG format, you get results that
look *much* better than if you had simply made a 8-bit, 75 dpi scan in the
first place.

The reason why about half of the pictures are a bit wider then the others
is because my collection contains both paperbacks and hardcovers, and the
hardcovers turn out to be relatively wider then paperbacks.