Methods of vacuum deposition and subsequent heat treatment of thin gold films are proposed, which allow one to obtain both extremely small gold nanoparticles with spectrally narrow dipole plasmon resonances and larger nanoparticles that support quadrupole vibrations. The effect of high-power laser radiation on both small and large metal nanoparticles in the regions of dipole and quadrupole resonances, respectively, was experimentally studied. Powerful laser irradiation leads to the ablation of small particles, while large particles decay into smaller particles during irradiation.