XnView Software

Way back in the Win3.1 days MS briefly sold a product called MS Scenes - a screensaver which sequentially shows pictures devoted to various topics. The one I bought was devoted to impressionist paintings. I continue to use the program in Win98 ( I don't know if it works in more recent versions), and have expanded it to include some 150 jpg pictures instead of the original 48 bmp files.

Occasionally, when adding a new picture to the PicSet directory, I get an error message when Scenes tries to display that picture. I have found that if I open the non-working jpg in XnView, save it as a bmp file, open that bmp file in PaintShopPro and save it as a jpg, the new jpg works fine in MS Scenes. The new jpg is slightly different in size and undoubtedly different in format, but it works. I may be the only one on the planet who does things like this, but I thought I would like to submit it in case I'm not, and this seemed like the right place.

Check the quality setting in PSP and try setting the quality setting in xnview to match, see if that solves the problem. The problem most likely lies in the MSscenes prog, especially since it's SOOOOOOO old. Also, you should be able to simply open the problematic JPG in PSP and then save it, without having to make it into a BMP first.

I would suggest switching your screensaver prog. There are a lot of free slideshow screensavers out there, one I've used in the past is http://www.gphotoshow.com/gpshow_free.htm There's a free version and a pro version. The pro version lets you use many different image formats, and lets you save the whole thing as an exe that you can share with people. The free version supports BMP, JPG, GIF, and PNG, audio formats WAV, MID, and MP3, and doesn't let you save it as a standalone screensaver.

Thanks for the suggestions Drahken. It isn't really a problem, and I have so much time and effort invested in this one that I hate to change.