They load perfectly quickly but as was pointed out, Jpeg is the better
format for photos. Gifs are usually for things like diagrams when only
limited colours are required.

Having said that, your pictures as gifs have an extraordinary artistic
quality about them. They almost look like old oil paintings where the
surface has cracked or where the artist has used some exotic surface.

So an excellent result - by default !

As for size, limited compression of jpegs can enormously speed download
times for those without fast connections and the loss of quality is
virtually undetectable.

Jack