one thing that may sped up the process is to have all your pictures in one file and have the top,left of where each is and then just load them to the pic boxs once and from then on always get them useing there location in that one picture to do this you will have to use bitblt or several set pixel calls if you dont already know this you can learn it or just do it another way.

for this youll need another picbox to store the pics in.

this may be faster but if you have alot of picture and they arent all used alto it may actually be slower im not shure