Does the Mac auto-downscale desktop images?

[maczod]

I know for Windows, if someone loads a 7 meg desktop background (you know, from those super high megapixel cameras) it can slow the load speed to a crawl... just wondering if the Mac is smart enough to downscale it such that it fits the desktop res perfectly?

 

[TH-Gunner]

Are you asking if it'll make a copy of the original and downscale it? No. And as far as I can tell, it doesn't downscale the picture or anything either. I just used a 5204x2602, 31MB picture as my desktop background, and it displayed at 100% scale. There was no system slow-down, though.