I'm working on implementing a site for my graphic designer friend.

He has a bunch of largish galleries of relatively large, high-resolution images that he wants a cross-fade transition effect on.  I would like to use the cycle plugin, but I don't think it's a good idea to have all the images load on page load.

Instead, I would like to have the first image load, display a "pager" that (when "2" is clicked, for example) will then show a spinner while the next image loads and then cross-fade it in.

Can I use cycle for this or is it too far from the original intent of the plugin?

-Steve