Basic Image manipulation component

This is a simple project involving basic image manipulation (resizing, colour reduction and imaging combination - translucency). The role is probably 80% advisory and 20% coding. For the right person it's going to be an easy deal and this is reflected in the rate we categorized the project within. Due to this I am expecting LOTS of bids. As such preference will be given to people who make it easier for us to select a candidate and follow these simple guidlines. Candidate selection/work implementation is likely to be completed in two stages. 1) Interested bidders read the spec. and submit a URL giving BRIEF & CONSISE information about the 3rd party imaging component they wish to recommend/use. A link to the producers web site etc. is probably best. Be sure to provide links to the cost as well. We don't want to have to mail companies. If you can provide simple before and after shot showing downsizing from say a 160*80 true colour image to a smaller 256 colour then that will save us huge amounts of time and is more likely to result in a positive outcome for yourself. Make sure your image selection is chosen well. An original with lots of colour gradients such as flesh tones shoes up different dithering techniques well. 2) Upon acceptence, we ask you to go to work using your recommendation. NOTE - .NET does provide some inherent support for this. We have not looked at it properly. Our initial reactions were that the resulting images were not of the required quality. If you have a different view and want to use this that is fine, saves us licencing fees too but my gut feeling is this is not up to the job. If you are doing this backup your claim with a sample. We're not going to simply take peoples word for it! Important factors for component selection: 1 Cost - We have no problem licencing something but it's got to be cost effective. No point recommending a $500 component for which we will not use 99% of the functionality. 2 How well it works in a server enviornment. The runtime lifespan of the comopnent will be very short but there will be many concurrent instances running at once. 3 Superb quality. This will run in an automated fashion. We will never ever want to have to touch up the original manually. We're really paying for someone else to do the research for component selection and spend an hour writing some wrappers. ## Deliverables 1) Complete and fully-functional working program(s) in executable form as well as complete source code of all work done. 2) Installation package that will install the software (in ready-to-run condition) on the platform(s) specified in this bid request. 3) Complete ownership and distribution copyrights to all work purchased. ## Platform Win 2k, XP etc.