I wish there were no thumbs. On the other hand, It's not the only limitation. Some of my pictures (but I am sure this goes for everyone here) lost some of their impact when resized to fit the screen. And I fit for a 1280x1024 so I allow myself a large standard. but sometimes it's not enough. Generally the number of hits or the number of comments are not a concern for me. Of course I like the comments because this means that some fellow photographers cared. That is great in itself. But it's not the number of them that makes me happy, rather, I am more happy when even just a single one person makes a comment that is deep with insight, than when I get , say, 10 "wows". That is what I do when I comment on other people's pictures, I always try to write something insightful if I can. Something that tells the deep reason why I appreciated what I could see. I think it's a nice way of giving back to people who post beautiful pictures. I regard every beautiful picture that is posted as a gift. A few pictures (here and elsewhere) have been so powerful, that could change my way of seeing things. Other were so resonant with my soul, that make something vibrate inside. How not to be thankful for that? I am one of those that get only 4-5 comments per picture. Perhaps as someone said, it can be because I very rarely write to forums. Or maybe, it's because I am not much concerned by the technical aspects so my pictures do not appeal much to the people who really master the photographic technique (and there are several who are regulars here at Rosity). But as I said, this is not a problem for me. So what is the problem for me? Well, I sometimes have made thumbnails just resizing the full image. But I have found that this diminishes the emotional impact of the big image when you move to it. Once you have seen it all reduced on thumbnail, a part of the power is gone. It's very, very hard to be able to have it back. This is the main problem with thumbs for me. And this is why now I always make thumbnails with crops now. I generally choose a part of the image that I think is an "emotional focus". This way, thumbs become for me some sort of a pre-comment, a non-verbal way to let the viewers know what I really feel for in the picture. But this also is in some way "brutalizing" the picture. So I'm not sure that it's a winning situation. As I said, I just wish that thumbs were not necessary. On a side note, it is sad to see how the so-called "right" thumb can drive more views than other thumbs. A few days ago I have posted to the gallery a picture of a couple I met in the streets. I used for thumb the girl's face, and only for that reason, I am sure, I got twice the hits that I generally have for my other pictures. I am sure that if I posted the man's face I would have had only half of it. With exactly the same picture. If I posted the puppy's face, probably somewhere in between ;-) But there is a justice to it after all: in spite of the many views, the number of comments was the same as the other images, not more. So, I read this like "the people who are really interested, will comment regardless of how sexy is the thumbnail. And this is good to know. The quality viewers of Renderosity may not be many, compared to the casual viewers, but they are reliable and insightful. I still have faith in them. -- Orio