Photographic Archive CDs
Royalty-Free Images

"You can't depend on your eyes if your imagination is out of focus."    — Mark Twain.
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The Photo Archive CDs are collections of JPEG images provided royalty free(*). The first two CDs contains images of Antarctica and the other three images of rock and mountain climbing. You should be able to use the CDs on any computer that can read ISO 9660 compact disks. To aid in image selection, thumbnails are presented grouped on HTML pages that should be viewable in any graphical web browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera...). There are so many bugs and different versions of those browsers that is impossible to guarantee satisfactory operation on even those listed above; so if you cannot get the pages to display properly, please return the CD for a full refund, indicating operating system, browser type and version.

On Microsoft Windows systems, the welcome page should come up automatically when you insert the CD. If it does not or you are on another operating system, open the file index.htm using your browser. At worst you can open directly the images located in the D:\Large\ directory (or whatever it's called on your system). I encourage you to make a backup copy of the CD.


The Photo Archive CDs

All the pictures provided on those CDs are royalty-free(*) but remain © Guillaume Dargaud 1992-2024.

Royalty-free means that you pay only once for an image that can be used for multiple projects over an unlimited period of time. Since royalty-free images are sold on a nonexclusive basis, customers often choose them as a complement to a design rather than making them the primary focus. Fees for royalty-free images are the same for every purchaser, regardless of the project specifics. The only factor that alters the cost of royalty-free images is the file size selected for purchase. Generally royalty free images cost less than licensed images (stock photography).

In other words, here is what you can do with them if you have legally purchased the CD:

And here is what you cannot do with those pictures, even if you have purchased the CD:


Maximum recommended print size of images, depending on their MegaPixel content (see the full table of content for size details).
Print formatWidth (in)Height (in)Width (cm)Height (cm)Diagonal (in)Mpix required for 300dpi print (high quality)Mpix required for 150dpi print (normal quality)
US letter8.511.021.627.913.9174
A48.311.721.029.714.3185
A311.716.529.742.020.3379
SuperB13.019.033.048.323.04812
A216.523.442.059.428.67418
A123.433.159.484.040.514837
Note: for large prints, you can use a lower number of pixels than strictly necessary as you are supposed to see them from farther. An approximate rule may be to use 300dpi for 4x6" (10x15cm) prints, 150dpi for size ranging A4 to A3 and 75dpi above that. I have done excellent quality A0 prints from the images present on the CDs.

Image characteristics: pictures were taken with various equipment including: a Nikon F801s, a Nikon F100, a Ricoh GR1 and a Ricoh GR21 using mostly Fujichrome Velvia 50asa or Provia 100asa slide film. Some photos use Black & White film (Kodak Tmax 100 or Fujifilm Acros 100). They were scanned with a Nikon Super Coolscan 4000ED at 4000dpi or in a few cases with a Minolta Dimâge Dual Scan II at 2820dpi, so most images are between 3800x2600 and 5400x3500 pixels. Yes, that's almost 20 Mega-Pixels, 3 to 10 times better than your average digital camera. Gamma of the scan: 2.2, gamma of the display screen: 1, sRGB or embedded AdobeRGB colorspace. ICE has been used or dust has been manually removed from the scans. The images are saved in JPEG files with very little compression and no watermaking or other useless security measures.

The CDs also contain a CSV file with image information (size, ratio, resolution, comment...) which you can import easily into any kind of database. A DHTML page on the CD gives an example by sorting images in various ways.

The various Photographic Archive CDs cost a meager US$140. I used to sell individual pictures for corporate use for $200 each, so that's about a 8000% price drop... Yeah, I'm bad at marketing.


Preview Thumbnails

CD Title Random Thumbnail Image lists
Resolution
Number of images
Content
Price
Purchase
Antarctic Photo Archive CD 1 Antarctic Photo Archive CD 1 Sample image from the APACD1 105 Emperor Penguins
70 Adelie Penguins
81 other animals
60 Landscape and icebergs
14 sky and weather phenomena
25 Dumont d'Urville
18 Terra Nova Bay
17 Dome C / Concordia
2820dpi
390
Pictures taken during one winter and five summers in Antarctica
140 US$
Antarctic Photo Archive CD 2 Antarctic Photo Archive CD 2 Sample image from the APACD2 21 Emperor Penguins
53 Adelie Penguins
50 other animals
51 Scenery and icebergs
 6 Sky and weather phenomena
32 Dumont d'Urville
 7 Terra Nova Bay
29 Dome C / Concordia
4000dpi
250
Pictures taken during one winter and five summers in Antarctica
140 US$
Antarctic Photo Archive CD 3 Antarctic Photo Archive CD 3 Sample image from the APACD3 11 Animals
13 Mario Zuchelli station
32 Fisheye
26 Flying
52 Glaciology
 9 McMurdo station
19 Polar night
38 Outside
44 Aurora and green flash
25 Portraits
33 Science
20 Summer camp
15 Traverse
23 Work
Mostly 4000dpi
360
Pictures of the first winterover at Concordia station
140 US$
Climbing Photo Archive CD 1 Climbing Photo Archive CD 1 Sample image from the CPACD1 21 Alaska
22 Chamonix
25 Cho-Oyu
10 Ecuador
26 Italy
49 New Zealand
23 Nepal
13 Various
38 Peru
 9 Sarek
 8 Tasmania
21 Tibet
Mostly 4000dpi
265
Pictures of mountain climbing around the world
140 US$
Climbing Photo Archive CD 2 Climbing Photo Archive CD 2 Sample image from the CPACD2 27 California
118 Colorado
10 Dakota
12 Others
93 Yosemite
Mostly 4000dpi
260
Pictures of rock climbing mainly in the southwest USA
140 US$
Climbing Photo Archive CD 3 Climbing Photo Archive CD 3 Sample image from the CPACD3 30 Arizona
35 Nevada
156 Utah
73 Wyoming
Mostly 4000dpi
294
Pictures of rock climbing mainly in the southwest USA
140 US$
Climbing Photo Archive CD 4 Climbing Photo Archive CD 4 Sample image from the CPACD4 51 Australia
32 New Zealand
21 Misc
146 Oisans
Various
250
Pictures of rock climbing around the world
140 US$
Climbing Photo Archive CD 5 Climbing Photo Archive CD 5 Sample image from the CPACD5 19 Corsica
11 Ice Climbing
25 Landscape
50 Mountain skiing
52 Nature
43 Rock climbing
16 Spain
13 Various
The Alps
230
New
Pictures of climbing and backcountry skiing around the Alps
140 US$
Discount Antarctic and Climbing Photo Archive CDs, the complete set For the whole thing, 3 Antarctic CDs and 5 Climbing CDs, just purchase 6 of them. I'll send you the last two free.

The security of the transaction is handled by Kagi.com which accepts most forms of payment (credit card, purchase orders, check, Paypal, etc...). As of 2017 my payment system is no longer in business, so just contact me and we'll work something out.

Various
2070
Antarctica and climbing pictures
-140 US$ discount