Ok... For one thing. ALWAYS Use HIGH RES PICTURES!!!!!!!!! Gawd, nothing is more aweful than someone sending a picture that is 72 dpi, I just hate it. When you scan pictures, use a real high resolution. Here is a tip.... Making things smaller make them look better, as in a picture that is 300 dpi and 20" by 20" will look really well when you bring it down to say 10" by 10". BUT if the picture is 72 dpi and 5" by 5", it will look awfull when you bring it up to 300 dpi 10" by 10". Also, the standard for printing is CMYK color and 300 dpi. Atleast, thats what i've been led to believe. Really, you learn this stuff as you gain experience doing it. You'll figure out what works best, etc, etc... The real key, or whatever you want to call it is to always use hi res pitures. It makes life so much easier, and makes the end product look a lot better. Oh and the bigger the image is the better... Hi res is good, but a hi res 20" by 20" picture is better than say a hi res 1" by 1"... Atleast, thats what i've come to learn. I'm still somewhat new to the whole thing though, just turned 17. I have 5 magazine ads published so far, and this is just what i've learned along the way... Oh and if your wondering what CMYK means... It's Cyan Magenta Yellow Black, I think thats how printers print. With those colors I mean... Pretty sure... So I always try to work in CMYK mode instead of RGB mode when doing print work. If I can do it though, no worries, anyone can.