> I'd suggest that use of color was a good way to make it more readable > without making it larger. JPEG is very good at handling colors -- and > in fact handles B&W as a color image. I tried using about 52 jpeg compression (beyond that, the smaller text labels become unreadable) in full color, and it clocked in at 900K (I'm using Paint Shop Pro 8). I reduced it to grayscale, same compression, it dropped to 200K. The grayscale map is not what I intended, and clearly it is causing some problems. I think I will try making a dedicated grayscale map, with clear differentiation between the various terrains. I was also debating doing a "hand drawn" look a la the famous map of Middle Earth. Bryan