I'm trying to create an image in Photoshop CS5, in the image I have smaller images that need to be rotated (25-40 degrees or so), but as soon as I do that they lose quality and you can see zig-zag edges and hard to read text, I made the smaller image into a smart object, but it does not fix the problem, I know it can be done because I've seen rotated screen shots online and they are of good quality, and not vector images either, so what is happening? The image I'm trying to rotate is 1024×768 resized down as a smart object, so the quality to start with is not too great.
PS: The image is of a website screenshot, I'm trying to put it in a portfolio.
Best Answer
The problem is due to the small size of your image.
If you are rotating by an angle other than 90, 180, 270 or 360 any horizontal or vertical lines will come non-vertical, thus giving you aliasing effects. These are also known as "jaggies". It's because a diagonal line has to be represented as a series of steps rather than true angled line.
If you can, rotate the higher resolution image and then resize it to the desired size.