Generally, with ANY kind of connection, the speed of loading images is slow the FIRST time, but should be much faster the next time.

Your browser should be set to check the cache first for each specific image that it has viewed in the last XX days or since the cache was last dumped.

So if you are evaluating the speed the SECOND (or THIRD, etc.) time you viewed the image or thread, then the speed should not be an issue at all.

Rather than ask a site visitor if they are willing to wait for X minutes to view a page, it would be better to direct them to a NEW (never viewed) page and ask them if the load time on that page was "acceptable" or "took too long".

You could create a series of three pages with either a different size/quality image or a different number of images on each and ask the users the same question about each of the three -- was it "acceptable" or didi it "take too long".

Remember as you create JPEG files, that the SIZE of that file can vary greatly. Create an image 500 pixels in maximum dimension and save it at various file sizes (4,6,8,10,12) all at 72 dpi. Then see how much larger the highest (12) file quality is compared with the 4 or 6 quality image. Most people cannot tell the difference between a 6 and an a 12 quality image.

Generally, people are a poor judge of how long something actually took, but they can tell you if the wait was 'worth it'.

With FrontPage, it's easy to create thumbnails (you can also control the dimension size of the thumbnails). So you could include clickable thumbnail images on image-intensize pages instead of the larger size images.

One other issue -- how a page appears to a visitor depends greatly on the setting of their display -- 640x480 (low end) to something like 1280x960 (high end).

Rod Watson created a way to detect the display setting of each visitor and then directs them to pages especially set up for that display setting. Lots of extra work, but the display appears optimized for each visitor. www.rodwatson.com

Generally, at www.HarbourLights.com , all the pages are set to appear acceptable at 640x480. To keep the text from displaying on lines way too long for someone with a high setting, I've used tables to control the display so it is about the same for all visitors.