Ok, so I'm pretty deep into learning how to use mobipocket creator to create kindle books, and I created a "cover" using a photograph I took myself, to avoid any IP laws/rules.

Anyway, I downgraded it to 600x800, changed it to greyscale, and it looks ... OK, but only OK. The screensaver/sleep mode images look GREAT, and I'd like my image to look as good.

I haven't used photoshop regularly in years (I've got version 7), but I thought I could define the numbers of colors the image has, and have it look at the image and pick the best 4 levels of grey, but I can't find that option anywhere.

Anway, what are your suggestions for adapting a photo to look good on the Kindle?

Thanks, Cathy Weeks

That's exactly what I want to do also, but don't know how to do. If anybody comes up with real answers, or especially with a "how-to", please let us both know.
Charles Wilkes, San Jose, Calif. cfw123@gmail.com

I suggest posting your original photo to see if anyone is willing to use it as a test.

Did you try the original color version on the Kindle? I don't think making it gray scale should be necessary in general. This does give you maximum control over the result though. Also, a 600x800 image will be reduced in size (because the image display area is not the full screen). HarryT recommends 400x600 for cover images, although this won't use all of the available space.

Also, if you have a SD card Alt-Shift-G will create a screenshot on the Kindle to illustrate the problem, see Igor's Keyboard shortcuts (http://igorsk.blogspot.com/2007/12/hacking-kindle-part-3-root-shell-and.html).

I've done a few photos for screensaver shots and found the following helps...

• High-contrast images look best, due to the Kindle display's limited dynamic range. Boost the contrast on your images.

• Convert your image to black-and-white on your computer; color images don't look so well, again due to low contrast.

• The Kindle screen size is 600W x 800H. Resize/crop your images on your PC.

I've done the same thing for some cover images (for Mobipocket Creator and for Amazon's online book creator), and gotten decent results.

Hope this helps...

I'm also interested in this. I used Photoshop Elements. I cropped the images 600 by 800 pixels and converted them to grayscale. The results were okay. I used photos of my grandson. I'm thinking that the problem is too much contrast so that I might get better results if I adjusted the lighting. I'll post the results if I'm succesful. I'm also interested in any tips anyone else might have.

If you are using the images in a MOBI ebook, the maximum displayed size is 520 by 640 and larger images will be rescaled (maintaining aspect ratio) by the Kindle to that size. See All on the Mac: PDFs with Formatting! (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20361). This seems to be the case for the cover image as well as images within the e-book.

the maximum size for Kindle images is 550px high by 450px wide.
make the images greyscale and save them out as GIF/JPG files.
the images can't be larger than 64kb, so aim for below 60kb.

vector and line graphics should be GIFs and photos should be JPG.

hope that helps,

-karl

http://kineticillusions.com

the maximum size for Kindle images is 550px high by 450px wide.
make the images greyscale and save them out as GIF/JPG files.
the images can't be larger than 64kb, so aim for below 60kb.

vector and line graphics should be GIFs and photos should be JPG.

hope that helps,

-karl

http://kineticillusions.com

and if the image is jpg and too large you can simply resave it at a lower quality setting to get it under the 60KB limit. Gif can often be saved at a reduced number of colors to make it smaller, after all it is a monochrome device.

Dale

the maximum size for Kindle images is 550px high by 450px wide. Do you have an example illustrating this? In my tests, 640px high by 520px wide worked. See All on the Mac: PDFs with Formatting! (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=148226&postcount=15). I originally used mobi2mobi without allowing for its image rescaling (which can now be turned off), but the test with mobigen appear to confirm the 640x520 value.

the maximum size for Kindle images is 550px high by 450px wide.
make the images greyscale and save them out as GIF/JPG files.
the images can't be larger than 64kb, so aim for below 60kb.

vector and line graphics should be GIFs and photos should be JPG.

hope that helps,

-karl

http://kineticillusions.com
Are you saying that Kindle images have to be so small and have to be no larger then 64k? That is totally ridiculous to force such backwards software issues on new technology. That (IMHO) is a major issue that needs to be resolved. And to charge $400 for such a mess is silly.

<sigh>

<sigh>
What I had hoped for is that AZW format was going to be an updated Mobipocket format that took into account that the Kindle is not a PDA or cell phone. The screen is 800x600 and yet it gets saddled with technology that is old.

If I create a text Mobipocket eBook with large images, would someone with a Kindle mind testing it to see if it works?

the maximum size for Kindle images is 550px high by 450px wide.


No, that's not true. I've created a number of books which have images 760 pixels high (the standard size I use for an 800x600 screen) and those images display fine on the Kindle, I am told.

The 64k (actually about 62k, I believe) file size limit for images in Mobi books only affects Palm versions of the Mobi Reader (because the Palm's memory is arranged in 64k pages, I imagine). More modern versions of the Mobi reader will happily display larger images.

Mobi Creator warns you if a book contains images which will "break" the Palm reader.

the maximum size for Kindle images is 550px high by 450px wide.
make the images greyscale and save them out as GIF/JPG files.
the images can't be larger than 64kb, so aim for below 60kb.

vector and line graphics should be GIFs and photos should be JPG.

hope that helps,

-karl

http://kineticillusions.com
This has been discussed and the conclusion was that the maximize resolution for kindle to display in full fidelity is 520x640. You can definitely put something larger than that in your prc file, but kindle will dynamically scale when display it on the screen. The 64KB limit is irrelevant to kindle.

Attached are the originals and the associated Kindle screenshots for 3 jpg images. The first is a cover image from FeedBooks, its original size is 595x842 (37KB) and it gets rescaled just like images in the interior of the ebook. The last two are from bob_ninja's version of Potter, Beatrix: The Tale of Samuel Whiskers. v1, 16 May 2008 (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23983), one is 931x1264 (117KB) and the other, in color, is 603x736 (74KB). All three images are relatively tall but this confirms the 520x640 actual size, the rescaling (maintaining aspect ratio) and the support for jpg's > 64KB. There is a noticeable pause before displaying a page containing an image, but illustrated ebooks work well on the Kindle. It is a shame that some professionally produced ebooks have much smaller images than those shown here.

the information regarding the kindle display comes directly from the amazon DTP website and kindle forum administrators.

in my experience, having a computer/device resize an image to fit the viewing area results in reduced image quality, additional processing time and larger than necessary file sizes. (see any large image resized in any IE browser window) if you are going to take the time to size your images, why not size them correctly in the first place instead of forcing them to fit?

it is true that kindle resizes to a certain aspect ratio so using larger graphics will work if image quality is less of a priority than getting the book "published". not every resized image will look bad, but why chance it? (my opinion)

the 520x620 dimensions mentioned above have about the same aspect ratio of the DTP posted limitations of 450x550. the slight delay that the users notice may be the kindle resizing the image to 450x550.

i have no first-hand experience with using larger than 64kb images as grayscale images are very small to begin with and there's no reason to include extra color data that will be lost and muddied by the reader device, i think. in any case, that is the official guideline posted by amazon.

if you are going to take the time to size your images, why not size them correctly in the first place instead of forcing them to fit? I agree, but the right size is 520x640 not 450x550. If you look at my screenshots from the Kindle, all the larger images have been resized (by the Kindle) to be 640 pixels high so 550 pixels high definitely isn't the maximum allowed.

if you are going to take the time to size your images, why not size them correctly in the first place instead of forcing them to fit?


One very good reason is that what is "correct" for the Kindle is not optimal for other devices and, if one is producing a "generic" MobiPocket book, the Kindle may not be one's only "target".

For example, for my own main MobiPocket device - the CyBook Gen3 - images with heights of around 760 pixels are "optimal".

All of this is very interesting. I would have thought an 800 x600 screen would mean 800 x 600 images.

So, if I'm thinking bookplates for the Kindle, then they should properly be 550 x 450??

As for creating 4 shade gray scale images, I've done it with PS, but my favorite tool is really an old version (8.1) of Paint Shop Pro. You can save various four color palattes and load them sequentially to see which one is best for your particular image.

http://www.geocities.com/ricky1750/Graphics/rehersal.gif

This is a comparison of an image I drew for a book that I've been working on (forever ... really ... forever). The four shade grayscale was created in PSP using their "X colors" command after first putting the image in grayscale.

I tend to leave anything with that small of a palette in gif format. I'm not certain that having it be a jpg (which is more lossy) adds much to the equasion, but I could certainly look into that.

All of this is very interesting. I would have thought an 800 x600 screen would mean 800 x 600 images.

So, if I'm thinking bookplates for the Kindle, then they should properly be 550 x 450?? There is a difference between screensaver images, which fill the 600x800 screen, and images in a MOBI/AZW ebook which are limited to 520x640. Also the latter will be resized for you if they are too big, but the screensaver images need to be exactly the right size and format. See Kindle Screensaver (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17234).

Got it .... so when I'm creating bookplate screensavers for the Kindle, those can be 600 x 800, but I should make the images in the book, the smaller size (depending on what size would be the best for the various types of e books.

Not that my book is going to hit the market anytime real soon. It's taking me ever so long to draw each image, and even longer to get the inspiration for each one.

Hey Ricky-

As you can see from these posts, nearly every digital reader device has different settings for the images they can display. As I work with my artists and they begin to get mired in the tech of the end product, I always remind them to create their art at the size and in the medium they are most comfortable with. We can "fix it in post" as it were for almost anything.

Don't get discouraged by all this tech talk when your work is hard enough just coming up with the ideas and putting your craft together! When all of the words and images/paintings/photos are together then decide on the platform(s) you will publish on and size/resize from there. By the time you finish one project many technologies will have changed and most of these posts will be moot anyway.

I ran an experiment to get to the bottom of all this. I'm doing thesis research on type design for e-paper, so actual dimensions and pixel sizes are important to me. You can read about my results here (http://www.noamberg.com/thesis/blowrg/?p=141). Looks to me like 520 by 640 is the "native" reslution, and anything else gets resized.

Looks to me like 520 by 640 is the "native" reslution, and anything else gets resized. I originally thought 520x640, but I now think 525x640 is the correct maximum size. See Kindle Automatically Doubles Image Sizes (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25575). Note that 520x640 won't get resized because its height is at the maximum. The difference between 520 and 525 only comes into play when the width is what controls resizing.

Note that 520x640 won't get resized because its height is at the maximum. The difference between 520 and 525 only comes into play when the width is what controls resizing.

Huh, interesting. That gives me five more pixels of wiggle room for my type specimens! It ain't much, but every little bit helps.

:thanks:

Attached are the originals and the associated Kindle screenshots for 3 jpg images. The first is a cover image from FeedBooks, its original size is 595x842 (37KB) and it gets rescaled just like images in the interior of the ebook. The last two are from bob_ninja's version of Potter, Beatrix: The Tale of Samuel Whiskers. v1, 16 May 2008 (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23983), one is 931x1264 (117KB) and the other, in color, is 603x736 (74KB). All three images are relatively tall but this confirms the 520x640 actual size, the rescaling (maintaining aspect ratio) and the support for jpg's > 64KB. There is a noticeable pause before displaying a page containing an image, but illustrated ebooks work well on the Kindle. It is a shame that some professionally produced ebooks have much smaller images than those shown here.

Wished I could see some more jpegs converted!
The color image has nice dirthering!

I found a trick that might help others in creating a grayscale image in photoshop. In the tab that shows all of your layers click the tab next to it labeled Channels. Now you can click each Channel (Red, Green, and Blue) to see which one has the best contrast. Normally, I copy the image in the channel that looks best and then create a new image (this way I don't muck with my color image).

Alternatively, if you want even more control, you can select Layer/Adjustments/Channel Mixer and then check the monochrome button. Now you can play with the sliders to see which one(s) gives you the best contrast. I've also found Layer/Adjustments/Posterize helpful as well (with a setting of 16).

ONLY after using one of these techniques do I try adjusting contrast/brightness.

Then click Save for the Web and ALWAYS save it as a GIF file. Set your colors to 4 colors, No Transparency, and play with Adaptive/Perceptual/etc, and Pattern/Noise/etc.

One thing I haven't figured out yet is what the values of the four colors should be set to. It just occured to me that I should do a Alt-Shift-D to save a screen image then edit that with photoshop to see what values the Kindle is using, but I haven't done that yet.

This is the first time I've tried entering a picture on the forum, so hopefully this won't look like crap. If it does then you can look at a color image of one of my covers here

http://s415.photobucket.com/albums/pp240/daithi/?action=view&current=MidSummer1.jpg

and a 4 color B&W here

http://s415.photobucket.com/albums/pp240/daithi/?action=view&current=MidSummer1-1.gif

Note: They definately look better at 100%.

Color JPG
http://s415.photobucket.com/albums/pp240/daithi/?action=view&current=MidSummer1.jpg

4 color B&W GIF version
http://s415.photobucket.com/albums/pp240/daithi/?action=view&current=MidSummer1-1.gif

Oh well, I tried. You'll have to click the links to see the images.

One more shot.

http://i415.photobucket.com/albums/pp240/daithi/MidSummer1-1.gif?t=1228345471

Woohoo! Here's the color version.

http://i415.photobucket.com/albums/pp240/daithi/MidSummer1.jpg?t=1228345910

I tried mucking about with that image for a bit. It's hard to turn that into a good Kindle image because it's a little too murky. That looks fine in color, but it's a real bitch to turn into four levels of gray.

I'd post my results, but I don't think they are much (if any) better than yours.

I'd suggest doing the color resize to the perfect resolution, and then save that version into 4color Grey mode.

Keeping it in higher resolution always will cause an additional dithering to be done by the kindle.

So first resize, then b&W.

So first resize, then b&W. These are the correct resolution for the Kindle (525x640). The original color version looks better, to me, on the Kindle (1st screenshot) than the off-line B&W conversion (2nd sceenshot).

If you have a SD card on your Kindle, then <alt><shift>G creates a screenshot (like these) on the card.

the second one just looks darker to me.

I was actually happy with the way the images turned out, and they do look better on the Kindle than they do on the computer screen. As wallcraft pointed out the images are at the maximum Kindle resolution (525x640). I hadn't even tried just loading the color version to the Kindle, so thanks wallcraft -- that will save me some time.

By the way, I was able to confirm definitively that 525x640 is the maximum size of an image inside of a Kindle ebook. I did so by creating two images. The first was a solid black line that was 800 pixels high and 3 pixels wide, and the second was a 600 pixels wide and 3 pixels high black line. I then made a mobi file that contained these images on seperate pages, and then I did the alt-shift-G thing to take snapshots of each image. Then I loaded the snapshots into photoshop and selected each line and cropped the image to what was selected. The 800 pixel high image had been resized to 640, and the 600 pixel wide image had been resized to 525, so that is definately the maximum size. (Most of you already know this, but I wanted to explicitly state it for new users coming to this site.)

I also used photoshop to examine the grayscale of the images produced by the Kindle. The four colors of gray are Black (#000000), Dark Gray (#555555), Light Gray (#AAAAAA), and White (#FFFFFF). It's my understanding that the Sony has a grayscale of eight instead of four and that the Kindle uses the same screen manufacture as Sony, so why the Kindle limits itself to 4 colors is kind of strange.

It's my understanding that the Sony has a grayscale of eight instead of four and that the Kindle uses the same screen manufacture as Sony, so why the Kindle limits itself to 4 colors is kind of strange. The Sony PRS-505 does support 8 levels, but the Kindle uses a different (older) display controller than Sony and it only supports 4 levels of greyscale.

Testing out what the exact pagesize is, is pretty hard.
Best thing you can do, is create a 600x800 png, gif or BMP. If the kindle does not support these picture files your last resort is a JPG.
Then create on the picture a B&W GRID.

Say every even line is black, uneven lines are white.

Then save your picture as 600x800 pix.
Crop it, and save another copy as it's native resolution (say 595x795).
All the way down to a little below what you believe is 525x640 resolution (say 520x635 or so)

you might be able to discover the display resolution of the decoder before it upscales the picture.
When the Kindle displays a grey image you most likely are not on it's 'perfect' resolution.

When you can see more areas with Black & White lines than grey area, it means you're getting close!


Come to think of it, even if the 'perfect' resolution was 525x640, it will upscale that picture making it more blurry.

So instead of 1 line black, 1 line white,you'd be better off doing 2 lines black, and 3 white, or reverse,since I suspect 1/1B/W will always seem grey on the kindle.

I hate to disagree with you, but finding the optimal image size is not that hard. To find find the optimal height create a solid black image that is larger in height than the screen display but thinner in width, and display that image on the Kindle. The Kindle will resize that image to its maximum height. Now save the Kindle image (alt-shift-G) and examine that image in a program like photoshop to determine the maximum height. Do the same thing to determine the maximum width. The optimal image size for the Kindle is 525x640.

What do you mean when you say, "Come to think of it, even if the 'perfect' resolution was 525x640, it will upscale that picture making it more blurry."

If 525x640 is as large an image as can be displayed within an ebook then I'm not sure what you mean by upscale.

That is that the kindle's display is 800x600 pixels. Obviously there has to be some sort of 'upscaling' to be done to fill the remaining 75x160pix.

Your solution of creating a larger border might work if the kindle does not rescale the picture. The Sony for instance, always shows a picture fullscreen unless you zoom in.
Even if the image is smaller than the display (eg:320x240).

That is that the kindle's display is 800x600 pixels. Obviously there has to be some sort of 'upscaling' to be done to fill the remaining 75x160pix When images are in a MOBI/AZW ebook, their maximum size is 640x525. This is the size of the images in the screenshots of the Kindle screen in my post #35. You can see what the rest of the space is used for there (book title, progress bar, status bar and white space margins).

I do have to say that the e-ink displays I've seen, have an extremely high DPI ratio.

I could not distinguish individual pixels.
but 75 pixels vertically out of 600 would be about 12% of the display used for 'bars'?

I think there might be some softwarematic things happening under the hood, like resizes.
160pix would be 20% of the screensize. You should check (measure) out if the progress bar really takes up that much space (20%).

I guess I'll be testing out my Sony reader soon, to see what the exact resolutions are, regardless of what the ebook format resolutions are.

I'm only suggesting, but the Ebook format could be based on older devices supporting lower resolutions.

Either way, I can really not say about the Kindle, but I'll test out myself on the Sony.

You should check (measure) out if the progress bar really takes up that much space (20%). The "screenshots" of the Kindle are copies of the screen bitmap, so they are exactly 600x800 and the image part is exactly 525x640.

Having a screenshot capability (only currently on the iLiad and the Kindle) makes this kind of optimization much easier, because you can "measure" the screen using the screenshot and an image editor on a PC. All Desktop PCs have a screenshot capability, as does the iPhone, but if does not seem to have trickled down to most EInk devices.

The "screenshots" of the Kindle are copies of the screen bitmap, so they are exactly 600x800 and the image part is exactly 525x640.

Having a screenshot capability (only currently on the iLiad and the Kindle) makes this kind of optimization much easier, because you can "measure" the screen using the screenshot and an image editor on a PC. All Desktop PCs have a screenshot capability, as does the iPhone, but if does not seem to have trickled down to most EInk devices.

I'm going to see if that resolution also is the resolution for the Sony reader.
I'm using the methode of a 'grid'.
So far I've gone from 800x600 downto 720x550 and no luck yet...
The 'perfect grid' hasn't come out yet.
I'll let you know if time permits, but I'm starting tho think that perhaps you might be right.
At least for the kindle you are.

I'm using the methode of a 'grid'.
So far I've gone from 800x600 downto 720x550 and no luck yet...
The 'perfect grid' hasn't come out yet. I intend to do something similar on the EZ Reader (Hanlin V3) this weekend, and since it does not have a screenshot capability I will be back to trial and error. Can you share your "grid" images, or are they easy to make? Note that in HTML and the MOBI format (at least) you can put multiple thin and tall images side by side, and this may help in telling which ones have been rescaled. Multiple thin and wide images can also similarly fit on one page.

The images I use is a B&W monochrome BMP.

I just created it in paint, unfortunately I don't have it available on this computer.
You can create it in a matter of 4 minutes.

Just create a new document in paint with 600x800 resolution.

Then draw a line on the top.
Select the drawing (CTRL + A), and copy paste it (CTRL +C, CTRL + V) 2 pixels lower (I found it works best when zooming to 200 or 400%).
Once you have 2 lines, just continue copy/pasting the whole image.
At first it seems to take long, but as soon as you have the second line correct, work goes quite fast (1 line, 2lines, 4lines, 8lines, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512,..).
Should take you 12 steps.

The painfull process starts when you are going to decrease the resolution.
I save the BMP as 600x800. Then take of 1 pixel from the bottom and from the side.
Save that one as 599x799.
This process takes a lot of time, and leaves you with a lot of BMP's.
I'm still in the process (while doing other things).

Unless you got a great photo editor that can autocrop and save for you, most work will be done manual.

If you want to, I can prepare the BMP's and RAR them, but that 'll most likely not be before next week!

Okay,I have the files, sooner then expected.
They are monochrome BMP,compressed, for horizontal and vertical probing, 600x800 to 640x500.

One of them is 800x600 pix, so you can test cropping it yourself downto the resolution you prefer.

Just see which 'grids' seem to display natural.
I still have to do the test when I get home; so that'll be around tomorrow.

I'm working on a tool which might help prepare images for Kindle ebooks. My one question - what is the best file format to output the images in?

The attached file is from my initial testing (using an image from this thread previously).

I'm working on a tool which might help prepare images for Kindle ebooks. My one question - what is the best file format to output the images in?

The attached file is from my initial testing (using an image from this thread previously).

Out of curiosity - what is it going to do different from my tool (http://www.foosoft.net/mangle)? Even though it's written for manga it should work for everything else...

Anyways, in terms of format I think GIF is the best option, especially when you convert to grayscale (less colors is best, get more run length for LZW compression). It doesn't have re-compression artifacts of JPG, smaller in size than PNG. The 256 color limit in the format is obviously a non-factor.

My one question - what is the best file format to output the images in? See MobiPocket's Image support and display (http://www.mobipocket.com/dev/article.asp?BaseFolder=prcgen&File=images.htm). This says that 63KB is the maximum filesize for JPEG as well as other formats, but that isn't the case any more. The bottom line is that if you use JPEG you don't need to worry about image file size, otherwise it still needs to be less than 63KB. The downside of JPEG is that it is a lossy format, which suggest that line drawings and images of text should be GIFs. Hopefully these will be less than 63KB in size (otherwise MobiPocket's tools will convert it to JPEG when making the MOBI).

Note that Calibre (mobi2oeb) converts all images to JPEG when format shifting MOBIs.

Out of curiosity - what is it going to do different from my tool (http://www.foosoft.net/mangle)? Even though it's written for manga it should work for everything else...

Nothing. Just the first mention I saw of your tool, and I was basing my work off a perceived need in this thread (and a hankering to play with dithering algorithms). In fact, it will do less, since it will just make the necessary resize and color reduction - it won't attempt to create it's own book.

Thanks for the responses!

Gifs are probably better for animes and books with little colors/details.
Once you start talking about 'Storm', 'Trigie', or other highly detailed comic books, which near to photo quality Jpeg will be better.
Textbooks are probably best compressed in either GIF, TIFF, or PNG.

See MobiPocket's Image support and display (http://www.mobipocket.com/dev/article.asp?BaseFolder=prcgen&File=images.htm). This says that 63KB is the maximum filesize for JPEG as well as other formats, but that isn't the case any more. The bottom line is that if you use JPEG you don't need to worry about image file size, otherwise it still needs to be less than 63KB.

If the file should work on all devices the data have to be reduced to under 63KB (or maybe 61). If you meant that jpg can always be reduced to the correct size then I think that depend on the tool you use.

As a new Kindle user, I have a more basic question about images. How do you get Kindle to display jpg files. The documentation says they will work, but when I load them to document folder, they don't show up in the index. . . . Or is it the case that images can be displayed only if they are part of a Kindle format book?

As a new Kindle user, I have a more basic question about images. How do you get Kindle to display jpg files. The documentation says they will work, but when I load them to document folder, they don't show up in the index. . . . Or is it the case that images can be displayed only if they are part of a Kindle format book?

If you're uploading directly to your kindle, you have to put all images, jpegs or otherwise, into a zip folder and then upload the zip folder. Then whatever you name the zip will show up on your home page. Select it and rifle through your jpegs at your leisure.

If you're uploading directly to your kindle, you have to put all images, jpegs or otherwise, into a zip folder and then upload the zip folder. Then whatever you name the zip will show up on your home page. Select it and rifle through your jpegs at your leisure.

Damn, that's a helluva late response...

Actually, I never knew .zip files would work. The way I do it is just create a dirctory under the pictures directory, and the image files in that new directory. The "book" will be named whatever the directory is named.

Damn, that's a helluva late response...

Yeeeaaahhh...sorry. I was (rather obviously) not looking at the dates on this forum as I was reading through it front-to-back. I noticed the date right after I posted. Thought: "Oh, well, hope someone else finds it useful!". This sucker comes up pretty high in Google when you search for "Kindle" and "Optimize images" so I was hoping it got readership, even if only dunces like moi actually bother to post in the damn thing :rolleyes:
--Dave B.

Actually, I never knew .zip files would work. The way I do it is just create a dirctory under the pictures directory, and the image files in that new directory. The "book" will be named whatever the directory is named.

Well that's good to know, too! Kind of like how you create custom screensavers. Should have thought of that.... --Dave B.