Hi,
Could you make new text and just a little bigger then the old text and place the new text over the top of the old text? Create a new layer and make sure you are using
Vector Text and
Anti Alias is selected when you use the text tool. Vector text is better then floating or selection text as you can deform it without the text becoming pixelated/jaggie around the edges.
I am not sure why you are seeing any of the red background color through your white block area.
Quote: "so I saved the whole thing in
block white with no shading or effects with a plain red background."
It is possible that you had your text selected when you used bucket fill to fill the white block? This would leave little empty pixels where a different color could show through.
The best way to create images for almost any use in PSP is to create everything on a layer of it's own and save it in .psp format as your original and then do a Save Copy As a .jpg. That way if you ever run into anything you need to fix you can easily go back to the layered.psp image and change it.
Hope this helps a little. For an extensive list of PSP learning technique tut's this is a great site: MAKE SURE to use the SEARCH feature on this site, very easy to find every tut which mentions the search term you are looking for!
http://www.psplinks.com/index.html