Having trouble with "free transform"

[ralph]

I have CS5 and when I select a portion of a photo and add it to another photo and make the moved selection very small by "free transform" it loses almost all of the detail.
What am I doing wrong?
Thank you in adavnce if you have advice.

[Hoogle]

are you holding down the shift key as you do the transform that way it constrains the proportion. if it is a dramatic change you may want to make the selection copy it to a new layer then right click it and select the layer and convert to smart object that way you can transform it as much as you like as long as you hold down the shift key you can make it smaller and larger as many times as you like. If it is not a smart object each time you transform it then it will loose quality.

[ibclare]

and . . . if you're already working with a low quality, low res image, you're going to lose a lot of detail as pixels are thrown away. No mater what the res, when you transform to a smaller size, you will lose pixels as PS tries to retain detail. As Hoog said, making it a smart object will save those pixels so you can bring it back up and then back down non-destructively.

What do you mean by "very small?"

[ralph]

[ralph]

I'm trying to put the photo of the guy in the driver seat of the truck and when I free transform to pretty small I lose all detail

[iDad]

the window can be a pita

[ibclare]

Often, even small pictures like the truck can be enlarged so that you don't have to take the driver down so far.

[Paul]

I made the truck larger first then scaled down the man, it still looses pixel quality, thats just it you see a pixel works by being ON or OFF theres no in between with pixels, thats why they go fuzzy going bigger or smaller eventually.
image for illustration purposes only - NOT a quality production