A technique for displaying a variable number of images on a display, such that a portion of the display contains the thumbnail images representing the library of images currently in use. A user selects a number of thumbnails, and another, often larger, portion of the screen, displays the underlying images of the selected thumbnails. The images are displayed on the screen in proximity to facilitate the comparison of the images, and the size of the displayed images is based upon the size of the portion of the screen and the number of images displayed.