300 dpi files

Hello everyone ... I'm a writer and I recently bought the S30 to replace my 35mm SLR film camera. My main goal is to use it to take publication-quality photos to accompany my articles. In the past, I submitted slides. Today, some magazines are willing to take digital, if they are 300 dpi or better.

That brings me to my question. If I take a "raw" image, convert it to a tif file, and import it into my PhotoDelux (home version, alas), it reads only 180 dpi (at about 8.5 x 11). Is this the best it can do? If I set the resolution (in the "photo size" menu) to 300 dpi, does that actually change the resolution to 300 dpi? Or do I have to go back to slides?

If anyone here can help, I would really appreciate it. Or if you know where I can do for this information, even that would be helpful....

Barbara

All editing software can create more pixels though interpolation (resizing). Of course the more you do this the softer the details will become. However, a substantial amount of resizing (say 2-4x with a sharp image) can be done resulting in an excellent print. One uses unsharp mask after upsampling (resizing) to sharpen, not before. Read this article carefully. It has screens from photoshop, but the concepts are the same in all editing software.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/understa​nding_resolution.htm
Mike K

Thanks, Mike ... I've printed out the article (and all the ones linked to it!) and I'll study them. But if I still don't understand, I'm comin' back!