lmao at JA's reply! and he's quite right as well. also he forgot to mention that one shouldn't try to sharpen the mechanical pencil. just a "heads up" you understand. as for sharpening the digital images...printing them as a 9x6 with that resolution shouldn't really require sharpening at all. i do a large amount of printing and can easily go up to 24x32 using a digital image that is 2816x2120 pixels. this is being done on a high end plotter using photo grade stock but it really depends on the software you're printing with. i use PSP 8 and it's quite good with the control it offers you. i dislike PS so i'm not sure what it's like in this department. i do know both have plug-ins which allow for some really great enhancements. i don't use them but one is a "fractal plug-in" which my son uses religously. i've found my biggest concern when printing to be contrast. i notice that my images at least, tend to muddy up a bit when printing them. in PSP, i throw a 10 contrast on the image and that seems to do the trick. another thing you want to look out for is pixelation. this isn't necessarily caused by the actual pixel count either. background noise will ruin an otherwise great image when printing it. Noiseware makes a great little app for free that handles background noise quite nicely. it's best used for web display but also enhances a print. my question to you is: are you printing these yourself or is it being sent to a commercial concern? if it's a commercial firm, i'd recommend they be a company who does custom work. it'll be more expensive but i think you'll like the end results better than someplace like Wall-Mart, etc. they take the time to adjust color balance, contrast, etc. if you request it. hope some of this helped! :-)