Guess what it is?

[LabRat]

Looking at these, especially in the first, the out of focus parts are really pix'ly (sp).

I took the images in the highest mode on my camera (6M*), then cropped them a bit in photoshop, saved as level 1 JPEG (prolly the prob), then once importing, noticed still too wide to fit on screen. So I changed the image size to be 750 pixels across, (about 1/3 of what it was) at 300 pix/inch.

What would be a better/best way to do this? New at this kind of manipulations. Thanks! I am facinated by small stuff, always taking apart stuff as a kid to see what was inside-though probably not to the extent of some here from what I've read. So, I grew up and became a microscopist/scientist type person. At least, that's what I get paid to be, when I'm not here...