Images become distorted after reduction

[JaySki]

I am having a problem reducing images to fit a 700x700 square for display on my website.
I set the camera to take "Fine+S/small" pictures but when I resize them to fit the 700px box they become sort of pixelated and "fuzzy" looking, losing all of the sharpness of the original image.
I've done this before and had no problem with a Nikon d5000.
I'm using a Nikon d3300 for these shots.

I resize using the "image size" in Photoshop by just entering the number I need the image to be and they get all messed up...I also tried resizing by just scaling the image down from the corner of the canvas and I get the same horrible result.

Is there another way to do this without losing the sharpness?

 

[KenC]

I'm not sure what "Fine+S/small" images would be. If they are smaller than the ones you got from your previous camera, that could be the problem. If they are about the same or larger, then the problem might be with the resampling method (in a pull-down at the bottom of the Image Size box. Generally, Bicubic Sharper is supposed to work best for reducing, but I've found that Bicubic sometimes produces better images. There are other methods you could try, but I don't have any experience with them.

 

[KmH]

The D3300 Small setting makes photos that have pixel dimensions (image resolution) of 2992 px by 2000 px.

Your camera makes photos that have a 3:2 aspect ratio - a rectangle. In other words, the long side of photos your camera makes are 1.5x longer than the short side ( 3/2 = 1.5)

Don't resize until you have cropped the photo to the right shape (aspect ratio).
In your case you want a square instead of a rectangle.

To get to a square 700 px by 700 px, an aspect ratio of 1:1, you have to crop away part of the original photograph.

Start by making the photo square.
To make a 2992 px by 2000 px photo a square, crop 992 pixels from the long side so you have a photo that is 2000 px by 2000 px, then resize.
If you want to keep as many pixels as possible you would only crop the long side of the photo.
If you crop for image content you may want to crop some from both the long and the short side of the photo to make the photo a square.

Since you will be resizing to a smaller size, be sure that the Resample box is not checked when you resize from 2000 px to 700 px.
Only resample if you are making a photo larger.