Patent ID: 7930434

Claim:
A method, comprising: establishing communication between a first computer and a second computer over a communication link, said second computer having an image collection comprised of at least two images stored therein in the form of compressed image data; transmitting image data at a first resolution for said image collection to render a montage of the image collection, wherein said montage is a collage of said image collection having a layout of the at least two images that is configured to be rearranged by a user of the first computer; receiving a selection of a first image from said image collection as rendered in said montage, said selection received for viewing said first image at a higher resolution than said first resolution; transmitting at least a portion of the compressed image data for said first image from said second computer to said first computer, wherein said transmitting includes downloading, to said first computer, full-resolution image data for a first region of interest of said first image; wherein said transmitting at least a portion of the compressed image data further comprises: transmitting at least low-resolution image data for a region of said first image external to said first region of interest, wherein said low-resolution is a lower resolution than said higher resolution; and wherein said transmitting at least low-resolution image data further comprises: transmitting said image data for external region, wherein said external-region image data is provided at a resolution that increases with progressively increasing proximity to said first region of interest.