I really need to keep the photos in high quality (and don't mind a slower load time) so is there a way around this 'compression' or to keep the photo in its original condition?
Really ? Why ? You are posting to an internet forum. It makes perfect sense that if you're going to be posting in-line images in your text that they should be of a reasonable size both physically and in terms of file size. Otherwise if the file size is too big, it'll take ages for people to download a page if there is more than one image. Just imagine three or four people on a thread, each posting even just a 2MB image... forum images should be 72dpi and weigh KB, not MB ... i.e. low to medium resolution rules the waves !
In-line images are not the place for hi-res.... if you want to show off some 200MB 300dpi photos taken on a medium format back, just post a link to your Flickr album
(Same goes for 40MB photos taken on a DSLR
)
EDIT TO ADD: oops.... In my haste, I might have missed
"my website" in your original post, i.e. you're not uploading to post in PPRuNE...in which case four thoughts ...
- If that's the case, depending on what you are measuring, your hosting provider may well be running GZIP inline compression on HTTP responses and there's not much you can do about it.
- How are you uploading them ? If you're just uploading them as files over FTP for use on a static website then I fail to see where any compression could take place ? If you're uploading them to a third-party image management site (e.g. Flickr), then you'll have to take the matter up with them. If you are running a CMS (e.g. Joomla) with some sort of image gallery plugin, then again you'll need to take the matter up with them.
- How are you measuring "compression and a lower quality picture" ?
- If you want to be 100% sure, just upload a TIFF or RAW file. But 100% quality 300dpi JPG should be more than sufficient for most applications.