I don’t know how many times I have made images with transparent background only to discover, once implemented on the intended website, that they have white artificats in the transparent areas. This happens when you change resolution of an image with transparent background and then save for web and devices.
There are 2 ways around this:
1. Apply the desired resolution on the image and save (as photoshop file) *before* you save for web and devices as gif or png.
2. Use the ordinary save function instead of “save for web and devices”. This way you won’t get any problems with artifacts.