Yes, it does, we never send the original, we "stream" web-optimized formats of the images. We did some tests pushing to 250 pictures of 25mpx each on a single page and both the load time and bandwidth were very acceptable.

We also discussed with some of our users doing gigapixel pictures and they did not report bandwidth issues, which is very encouraging.

To share my experience, I tried today with a 50mpx image: it took me 1 full hour and it constantly used 10% of my CPU. But the quality was great (even sharper?)!