>Here what I found:
>(It is VB but its easy to convert :-))
>

>dim myImg, fs
>Set fs= CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
>if not fs.fileExists(img) then exit sub
>set myImg = loadpicture(img)
>iWidth = round(myImg.width / 26.4583)
>iheight = round(myImg.height / 26.4583)
>set myImg = nothing
>

It's the LoadPicture() that's slow, so not different from what I'm doing already.