To display a low-resolution version with specified dimensions and later switch to a high-resolution version without additional server requests, you can use the IMG tag for the low-res version and update the URL programmatically (e.g. using window.onload event). If you set a data URI for the low-res image, it saves an extra fetch.
<img
realurl='http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Very_Large_Array,_2012.jpg'
src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAQAMQAAORHHOVSKudfOulrSOp3WOyDZu6QdvCchPGolfO0o/XBs/fNwfjZ0frl3/zy7////wAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACH5BAkAABAALAAAAAAQABAAAAVVICSOZGlCQAosJ6mu7fiyZeKqNKToQGDsM8hBADgUXoGAiqhSvp5QAnQKGIgUhwFUYLCVDFCrKUE1lBavAViFIDlTImbKC5Gm2hB0SlBCBMQiB0UjIQA7"
/>
<script>
function replaceWithHires()
{
var images = document.getElementsByTagName('img');
for (var i = 0; i < images.length; i++) {
if (images[i].realuri) {
images[i].src=images[i].realuri;
}
}
}
if (window.addEventListener) {
window.addEventListener('load', replaceWithHires, false);
} else if (window.attachEvent) {
window.attachEvent('onload', replaceWithHires);
}