A superb piece of work. I really really like it and if there is an overall shot in existence, I'd like to see it.
I'd like to say it's persuaded me to find the tools under the morass of overdue paperwork and spend a few hours, but I think there might be one Gnatterboxer fewer if I don't do some housework and spend a little time with my wife.
Regarding compression, I don't use photobucket but I'm assuming the compression is the standard JPEG compression factor, in which case, although it's a bit of a matter of personal taste, try starting out at 35% and work from there.
In addition, if the software you use for resizing also has a function called 'unsharp mask', try applying that before reducing in size. Most pro's will probably throw their hands up in horror, and I gnow that's not really what it's meant for, but in the specific case where you're going to reduce the size and then apply JPEG compression, it appears to offset some of the detail loss at higher compression ratios. I say 'appears' because that's gnot what it actually does, but in good old Gn15 fashion the eye is fooled. There are usually a number of arcane parameters but for bodging purposes the only one to worry about is 'radius'. Start at 3, work up and down from there, and if you don't think it's making any difference to the result, ignore the advice

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regards
Andy A