Art fans can now see the National Portrait Gallery's entire collection in one place for the first time with the help of a Sussex firm's new media wizardry.

Just one-tenth of the gallery's pictures are on public display but every image has been digitally recorded and presented on touch-screen computers by Brighton-based Cognitive Applications.

The Queen was one of the first visitors to be introduced to the technology when she opened the gallery's new wing in which the computers are housed.

Around 10,000 images are available in the electronic archive.

The collection is now open to web visitors after Cognitive Applications added the search facility to the gallery's official website.

It is now redesigning the site from scratch.

Managing director Alex Morrison says: "We don't do many smaller projects.

"We have the experience and the tools to take on bigger things."

Mr Morrison admits viewing images through the computer system is a different experience from seeing them for real.

He says: "You are seeing them by transmitted rather than reflected light so it's inevitably a completely different experience."

Earlier this year, the firm created a new media presentation for the Globe Theatre at Southwark, London.

Its Shakespeare karaoke, in which visitors read lines alongside the recorded voices of actors, was praised in an editorial in The Times.

These projects follow a presentation for the National Gallery which was completed in 1991.

New media technology was then in its infancy and Mr Morrison had to prove an electronic archive was possible.

He says: "In 1988, scanning was virtually unheard of. It was all custom software.

"It was a major question for us - could you reproduce a picture where the quality was acceptable?"

The project only got under way after Mr Morrison built a prototype which proved the job could be done.

A similar touch-screen gallery was created for the Manchester United museum at Old Trafford.

Mr Morrison's staff spent months sifting through FA log-books and video footage to create a definitive database.

Some of this information is also used on the Manchester United website.

After so long in the new media business, Mr Morrison is sceptical about some of his newer rivals.

He says: "We look at some dot com stuff and think we don't understand what's going on out there.

"Some of it does look pretty flakey but it's exciting because not all of it is like that."