just to add my 5 cents on the progressive principle of jpeg: there are no several lowres images stored in jpeg along with original picture, the only thing altered is the order of "pixels". in jpeg the image is divided in areas 8x8 pixels, so instead of linear order of pixels (row-by-row), first there is one pixel form each 8x8 area included in the begining of the image data stream, so when the browser recieves all 8x8 area pixels, it can display "pixelate" image and as soon as it recieves more data, the browser can add more pixels and "sharpen" the image.