From AOL, September 15, 1998 (http://webmaster.info.aol.com/compress.html):

[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.

In addition, some images wider than 640 pixels will be resized to a width of 640 pixels after being compressed ... This a limitation of the compression software that is used for compressing photo images.

To fix this problem, look at the top of your AOL 4.0 browser and click on the "My AOL" button, which displays a drop-down menu. Choose the "Preferences" option and then click on the "WWW" button shown below:

Now click on the "Web Graphics" tab and uncheck the
'Use compressed graphics' box shown below:

Click 'OK' and you will now be able to see our graphics (and other web sites) a lot clearer! If you are using AOL 3.0, you should click on the "Prefs" button at the top of your browser, followed by the "Web Graphics" tab to get to the screen shown above.