Re: Blurry Unclear Images - Illustrator

To create a 'place holder' in PS, first create a box in Illustrator that is the size you want. Then, paint it white or whatever, but have no stroke. Select all the points of the box and copy to the clipboard.

Switch to PS and create a new file. The dialog box should come up with the size of the 'place holder' box in clipboard. Set your resolution and you done!

Hope that makes sense and that I understood your question right.

As for JPEG compression, even 'maximum' will provide a significant decrease in filesize. At the 'maximum' level the artifacts created by the 'lossy' JPEG compression will be little to none.