achieving transparency must = big file?

[bch33]

I have created some collage type graphics in ps and was saving them as jpg. I needed some with transparency and so I converted them to gif 128 dithered. This more than doubled the file size' I tried knocking the colors or lossy down but the quality loss was really bad. So... do I sacrifice web loading time or I sacrifice all the work on the graphics--I suppose its the age old dilemma for ps and web workers, huh? It seems there would be a way to achieve transparency without doubling the size....
Can anyone help? I would appreciate it so much.
bch

 

[TwistyPigeon]

Have you tried .png files?
I've been experimenting with them recently in Photoshop, and they are apparently capable of jpg style compression with transparency. My images didn't show the different alpha channels properly in IE 5 however. Maybe some experimenting is in order there, but the option is available is PS. Haven't tried the images in IE 6 yet. I thought I heard somewhere that they show png files properly now, as does Mozilla. Not sure about Netscape.

Hope this helps some.

 

[bch33]

Thanks, I'll mess around with that and see.
Appreciate it much!