Can't get cell height in table the way way I want it

I'm using Dreamweaver (CS5). I have a table within a table. The outer table has no height specified. I use it to define the width overall width of an editable area. The inner table has 1 row and 2 cells. In each cell is a small image (25x25 px) and some text. The default height does not give me what I want so I went into the code and set the height. It works best when I put the height in the <table> description:

<table width="500" height="60" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10" class="default_font">

Here I set the height to "60" and it looks perfect in the design view. But when I display the page using Firefox the height of the cells is large with more space top and bottom of the image/text.

I can increase the "60" to a larger number and it increase in the display. So it looks there is a minimum height but that has way too much empty space.

I've also tried moving the "height="60" to the <tr> line, but then it looks worse in the design view and in the display.

Also, the template that I use to create the web page does not specify any height.

What am I doing wrong? What can I do to reduce the height of the cells?

Thank you in advance.