responsive web design and IE

working on my first responsive site and i have run into few things that are bothering me.

max-width is used and IE is not a big fan of this so what do you guys do to make it work in IE?
I have seen javascript fixes for this but then what happens for those who have it turned off?

the site I'm working on has a main header image with a png over the top to give it some shape.
the bottom is curved and the edges are faded so it looks like the image has been faded out to the body bg colour.
The image is 1280 wide so i was using max-width 1280 so the edges are not seen then it has width 100% so it adjusts to the size of the screen.
of course this does not work in IE7 & 8. there is the expression filter i can use but that is using JS or i can use a script like respond but is there a way to use max width without JS for IE or is there a better way to active what i want?