I use to crop and resize my pictures all the time too and that's why when I went to Nevo training, I asked the trainer what the exact resolution of the background is. He told me that it was 240(w)x280(h).

I'm not sure about you, but since I found out that the NevoStudio software resizes the background, as long as I get the aspect ratio near what 240x280 would be, then my pictures (no matter their size), look stunning. This feature has saved me dozens of hours of work.

Also, I'm not sure why your pages seem like they are loading slower because even though you may put a huge 5 MegaPixel picture in the background, the software not only resizes the image, but also resamples it. I've had a client submit about 15 pictures for me to put into a "gallery" on his remote and all of the pictures were 8 MegaPixels(!). I didn't resize a single one and they fit into the config like a gem.

If you are having issues with the backgrounds loading slow, it's probably because your overall config is just getting too large. Try cutting some of the pages out and then see if that helps.