what you want to accomplish with your website. I don't know if you have ever looked at my site (which is ALWAYS under construction), but I think that I can safely say that I have some of the largest scans of chips found on most websites. I'm referring to screen size, not necessarily image size (never really checked that out). If you like the size of the chip scans shown on the screen when you visit my site, there's your answer. If you don't, go with something smaller.

Personally, I think the more detail, the better. You are correct when you say that compression has a lot to do with the quality of the image. Of the 3 images that are the same size on the screen (as shown in your post), I prefer the larger 21k file. The scan below (example from my website) is just under 22k.

I hope this helps and Good Luck with your website.

- Mike (MQPROD)