Feature Slider Excerpt and Images

I have 2 issues: My Feature Post Slider is displaying html in the excerpt. For example, for post 1: After the number of words allowed in the excerpt it states <span class="readmore">Read More...</span> If I reset excerpt length to 0 it still reads the html line (without any excerpt words from actual post). Also, my images do not align properly, in either True or Wait formats. Do I have to crop them all to same size?