Is it text?
Is it an image?

No, it's...

htmlPic

From the series "tools that shouldn't exist"...

Do you think that today's networks are too fast?
Do you worry because modern browsers can render even the most complex HTML layouts in little time?
Do your web pages suffer from being too small, although you put lots of images on them?
Do end-users complain that your pages are loaded too fast through their DSL/Cable "broadband" links?
Do you fear that you haven't put enough waste on the web yet?

If you answer "yes" to one of these questions then htmlPic is for you.

Blows up images to unbelievable sizes.
Honours transparency of images.
Three different tools with different optimization levels available, but better optimization does not necessarily mean smaller size.
Complies to the words of XHTML 1.0 Transitional and HTML 4.01 Transitional, but completely fails their meaning.
Not guaranteed to work with all browsers. However, Netscape 4, Internet Explorer 5&6 and Konquerer seem to display everything "correctly".
Update: With the help of CSS files are blown up even more, benefitting in "correct" display in Opera and Mozilla. Thus probably also Netscape 6&7 and other CSS compliant browsers should work.

Download source code: htmlpic-0.0.3.tar.gz (older versions: htmlpic-0.0.2.tar.gz, htmlpic-0.0.1.tar.gz)

Would you like an example? Then look at this very carefully:

Or try another example. Or one more. Warning: If the current page appears to be slow in your browser, the two additional examples are likely to slow it down even more so that your browser might become unresponsive and unusable for some time.

If you still do not have an idea what htmlPic is about after looking at the examples, please have a look at this page's and the example pages' HTML source code – I think you'll understand quite fast: These pictures are not really pictures but rather big HTML tables. Well, I think there might even be some sensible applicability of htmlPic in a few rare cases, but I'd prefer not to elaborate on it...