Padding, slider and removal of search bar

Dear Sir, I hoped to move menu bar and logo down a bit, tried different padding css codes but not successful. Second, to remove the blue space in the post slider, do I have to edit all my pictures to fit Width: 1280px Height: 550px? I thought the cropping was done automatically. Lastly I would like to remove the search bar and the archives, I could not find where this option was. Since I am running on local host I have uploaded here with the relevant questions. Best, Sam