Digital Portfolio Woes

What despair I've felt as I've dug back through my image files, searching for high-resolution images of my art. So many of the files just won't do. Most of them are low resolution images. I didn't save PSDs. I'm usually on an old machine. In the beginning, I didn't have proper image-editing software; nothing but MS Paint, and it wasn't configured for high resolution. I don't think Paint let you save as a JPEG back then ~ just bitmap. Even the photos I saved later as PNGs don't have enough image information for enlarging. Computer storage space was so tight when I first started digitizing images. On one of my very first scans, I didn't know what I was doing ~ I even saved a painting in GIF format. Bad idea. I didn't know. Most forum users back then recommended GIFs. Writers assumed that every user wanted logos and icons in web colors. It was all about saving space.

Back in the day, I took my own film photos of my art. They were 35 mm, but many were of poor quality: skewed corners, chopped-off edges, some out of focus. It really shows when I enlarge them to work on them. I don't have most of the original works anymore, so I can't reshoot. For the most part, I have to give it up and realize that I just don't have a reliable portfolio of past art. My web-sized images just won't do. Going forward, I'll try to do better. In the meantime... guess I'll just have to get busy and make more paintings!