Dpi and raw images.. confused!!

[magmac21]

Hi I hope this makes sense as i am relatively new to shooting in raw and just getting to grips with processing them. I am shooting in raw and them using digital photo professional to convert to tiffs to work on in photoshop. The files are roughly 40 mb at this stage but are automaticaly coming up at 72dpi. Do I just change the dpi at this stage because I am looking for images to 300 dpi for quality or should I have done something earlier in the process. Will changing the dpi at this stage mean losing any quality ? or am I completely going about this the wrong way!
Any help much appreciated

[Jesper]

You are not the first one who is confused about the meaning of "dots per inch"... Do a search for "dots per inch" in the forums here and you will find lots of posts that explain what it means.

A short answer: Dots per inch does not mean anything! It does not tell you anything about the quality of the image. Dots per inch only has meaning in relation to a print. The only thing that counts is the size of your image in pixels.

[LadyHawk]

Jespmagmac21 - I think you meant ppi rather than dpi.

Jesper is getting way too technical... must be an engineer or IT type. ;) For practical purposes, this is what you want to do in Photoshop to replace the 72 pixels/inch (ppi) setting (this is usually the default setting for digital cameras).

Go to the image menu, choose image size to bring up the Image Size dialog box.

Under the Document Size section, the Resolution setting is 72 ppi. This is considered "low resolution" and is ideal for images viewed online, but it is too low for high-quality results from your ink-jet printer. Proceed as follows:

1) Make sure the Resample Image check box is unchecked (off), then

2) Type in the Resolution setting you need, such as 240 or 300 ppi. Photoshop will automatically adjust the width and height of your image in the right proportions. There is no loss of quality with this procedure.

I don't know which version of PS you have, but here's one book that is very good: http://www.scottkelbybooks.com/detail.lasso?ID=BOK-CSDP

Welcome to the forum, by the way! :D