There are some nice tutorials on how to display text as an image. Some examples of when you might wish to use something like this is perhaps if you wish to display your email address on a web page, but don't want it to be harvested by spammers; a CAPTCHA...
In ASP.NET, you may easily resize images without using a third-party control. Whether reducing or enlarging, or creating a thumbnail image, ASP.NET is your oyster. I'd like to review a solution by Alex Hildyard and demonstrate his custom ImageResize class...