On the surface, it's really not a bad thing although I don't really consider myself a "photographer" in the strictest sense of the profession. I take photos at events, cull out the not-so-great-ones and post the rest to the web site via one method or other. Apparently, I do a good enough job of that to get asked by our volunteer fire department to photograph their annual Inspection Ceremony & Breakfast. The excuse being that they like my work on the web site and would like to keep the money in the village rather than pay some "interloper". (Most of this is tongue-in-cheek, BTW. I'm really grateful for the work and the vote of confidence)

Where I have started to run into trouble is in editing & exporting to photos for print, since that is the purpose of the photos....to frame and to display in the fire hall and in the homes of those firefighters who might wish to do so. I am, of course, using Designer Pro X.

My first snafu was that I woke up Sunday morning (the day of the shoot) with blood sugar about 6x normal. That's OK, I can function-not well, but I can function. Got all the group shots with no trouble. The other reason they asked me (ha HA! the plot thickens) is that they want to do individual head shots for the first time ever to create a yearbook of sorts. That was all fine and dandy until I got home and looked at the files and realized there was a giant doorknob attached to a hideous door on the right side of the individual photos! P&GD's Cloning Tool to the rescue!! (I was pretty impressed with my endeavor since it was the first time I'd tried it. Even more so because I showed my wife the finished product at full screen and she was like "What?". Then I showed her the original. Made me feel kinda good, y'know?)

Anyway, that crisis averted, for the individual photos, I'm trying to export them to a resolution that will allow prints up to 8" x 10". The original photos were taken at 10M or 3648x2736 which the book says is good for up to a 9" x 12". According to my research I've found that the best resolution for the size print I want is 3072x2304. Here is where I'm really getting confused.

When I export the JPEG at 3072x2304 it shows 96 dpi. Is that high enough for very good print quality? The manual says 150 dpi for print but setting that changes the dimensions. I feel like I don't completely understand how dpi and resolution are interrelated when it comes to the actual dimensions of an image. dpi is obviously a print term. My head is roaring right now.

Also, prior to export, should I optimize the photo? I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around this segment. I think I understand that optimizing is destructive so I'm not doing that, obviously, until I'm done with all the head shots and have extra copies so I have a way back. If someone could dumb down this process for me, I'd be extremely grateful.

Thanks again for your help!