what resolution should artwork be to print out clear

[Anakin]

I know 300 dpi is good but what about the resolution?

[GoPodular.com]

That is the resolution.  dpi= "dots per inch".

[leapinlew]

Resolution and DPI don't really have much to do with each other. Since you can fit 1"dot per inch" on a 8.5 x 11inch sheet or you can fit 10 billion dpi on the same sheet.

Resolution commonly means size - like 800x600
DPI means - dots per inch. The more dots - the more quality.

To answer your question - I did my last cp at 300dpi and it was fine. I would probably do 600dpi on the next one - just cause I can...

[leapinlew]

also:

DPI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dpi

Resolution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution

[Anakin]

I'm using this image below on my control panel and when i change it to 300dpi i notice a lot of fuzziness on it when i zoom in.  I'm trying to find out how this image would look like when i stretch it to 42x16 inches..

[lordtodd75]

unless its vector you are going to get pixelation 

[leapinlew]

unless its vector you are going to get pixelation 

True true

[Anakin]

well guess i'm out of luck  this is what i wanted for my control panel.  unfortunately for me, i have no clue how to do vectore

[Anakin]

my CP

[PoDunkMoFo]

Also remember up-sampling does no good.

If you start with a 72dpi image and you change it to 300 dpi you just added more dots you didn't make the image any better.

[Capthowdy]

my CP

ahh...i see the problem.  how's this??

ya gotta give them something to fight over!!

[RayB]

Hit the Artwork forum and offer someone a few bucks to vectorize it for ya.

[GoPodular.com]

DPI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dpi

"Dots per inch (DPI) is a measure of printing resolution..." 

You can make any image smaller, but you have work ahead of you to make it bigger.  Either you fix it all pixel by pixel, or you vectorize it and then let it redraw itself.  Sometimes you can scan it at a high DPI, but I've seen mixed results doing it like that.  If you can use Paint Shop or Photoshop "normally", vectoring an image isn't out of your grasp.  It's just adjustable shapes rather then pixels.  When you blow up a vector image, it just recalculates itself and automagically gets rid of the jagged edges.

[PoDunkMoFo]

DPI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dpi

When you blow up a vector image, it just recalculates itself and automagically gets rid of the jagged edges.

Actually it doesn't get rid of the jagged edges because once you vectorize something there are no jagged edges.  Think of it as going from a dot by dot description of the image (bitmap) to a mathematical geometric description of the image (vector).