As an AOL user, I have seen various warnings on the Web that unless I
change AOL settings from their default of "compressed images" to
"uncompressed images", the images will be saved in ART form (even if
they seem to be in JPG), and if emailed will appear defective to
recipients not using AOL. Is this really the case? I should prefer a
response from an AOL user; and certainly not from anyone with a
deepseated atagonism towards the company!!

Dear geof:

Thank you for your question. Although I am not an AOL user, friends
who do use AOL occasionally do send me email attachments of images
that I can not open. I can confirm that this is the case. To
understand why, it helps to know a little bit about how the AOL
Compressed Images system works:

WebLink.com has an excellent description of the problem:

"America Online utilizes a graphics compression software that speeds
up the delivery of web pages by compressing the images of various
multimedia applications (such as images that have already been
compressed, as .GIF, or .JPG). This graphics compression software
converts them to a proprietary Johnson-Grace image format with the
extention .ART. Even though the images still carry the extention they
started with, they have been altered -- converted to the .ART format."
Source: http://www.weblink.com/imageopt.html

Here's the description of Image Compression straight from AOL:

"When the AOL caching system detects that an object is an image, it
sends the image through a compression manager on the AOL system
network before caching it. Compression makes images smaller for faster
retrieval from the cache to members. Members can individually disable
AOL graphics compression, but most choose to allow compression because
it speeds up web page delivery. "
http://webinfo.aol.com/index.cfm?article=13&expand=0&sitenum=2

Computers that do not have AOL installed can not open .art images. In
fact, not even Photoshop can open it. It's a pretty rare format.

Google Search Strategy:

     aol "compressed images" .art      
://www.google.com/search?q=aol+%22compressed+images%22+.art&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&start=10&sa=N

Best Regards,
blader-ga

I believe the latest updates to Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 have the
ability to handle AOL's ART image format I think I saw it mentioned in
the details when upgrading my browser a while back, but can't seem to
find it on Microsoft's site.

There's a great picture viewer called ACDSee
(http://www.acdsystems.com/English/Products/ImagingProducts/Featured1/index.htm)
that can open nearly any image format, AOL's .art format included.

You can add ART support to IE by going to Windows Update -- use Tools
> Windows Update or visit http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com.