my logo is a PNG and is around 25kb, is this too big? i cant have it jpeg as it loses so much quality and the text looks messy. anyway my other question, does it reload the png with every page view?
if so would it be wise to host my main images on photobucket or something?
In my opinion that is kind of bulky for a forum, optimization would be nice. If you can't do it then you can't do it. I'd recommend against hosting it at a free image hosting site - when you do that you add even more wait time as the images are called and you become dependent on their uptime, issues, etc...
Just my thoughts on the subject.
ok ive came up with an idea then, ill make the text its own PNG file, and everything else will be jpg. :)
Though there are starting to be decent numbers that represent the percentages of folks online with broadband (as opposed to narrowband connections) load time is still very important to people. When in doubt less is generally better. Gone are the days where bloated Flash being the ideal for every site's intro (without a "skip intro" button even) and the need for giant images to be pushed down to visitors who are only there for quick information. That and, well, in the long run it will cost you less to maintain it as the bandwidth really can get expensive for some people.
25kb is extremely small. It shouldnt affect your site.