Recently, Microsoft announced Seadragon.com, a simple service allowing photographers to create a deep- zoom image by linking to a file online. All you need to do to create your own deep-zoom image is to post an image online, copy the image link (not the page link) and Seadragon.com takes care of the rest. Photoshop CS4 and CS4 users have been able to create similar deep zooms for some time using Zoomify, but this system is simpler to use and easier to integrate into a Web page.

Here’s a quick example of a completed Seadragon deep zoom to get you started. (You will need the Silverlight viewer for the animation to work correctly. Click on the Install Silverlight badge corresponding to your operating system.)