They are pictures of a restaurant and various dishes.... I'm sure I could get the original pictures... What resolution should I be looking for? And How come that affects the printing? Because, when I look at it in any viewer + photoshop etc etc, it looks perfect in 100% view... but when I got it printed, (my image is 8.5" x 11" exact) and Staples printed it with a 1cm border... and then the brochure appears to be printed/viewed at 101.96% 9which is blurry as heck!)

Edit: Thanks for your input/help Inaii, Peazs, Senna4ever, and Raid3n!

True, but will it make a noticeable difference in a 8.5"x11" printed brochure? I've never used Illustrator much.

You're looking at your image/s on your screen at 100% resolution which is at 72dpi, while your printed copy is 101.96% of your image size @ 72dpi. If your image was 300dpi at the same dimensions, then it would not look blurry or pixelated.

For instance, if your image dimensions are 4"x6", but your resolution is 72dpi, it will look blurry/pixelated in print, but it will look great on your screen. You need to submit a 300dpi image to the printer for a sharp printed image. Now, you cannot up-rez a 72dpi image to 300dpi and expect to get good results. Hopefully, your original image is/was at least 300dpi.

It does actually. When you convert the text to outlines in Illustrator, it essentially becomes a graphic (or a vector image), which means smooth lines and no pixellation. When Photoshop rasterizes text, or any sort of computer generated image (ie. a graphic drawing), it creates it by pixel rather than filling in the edges and makes it appear fuzzy and pixellated.

I had an issue with a client this morning actually, he made his business card in Photoshop, and even though it was only 3.5x2", his text was fuzzy. The larger the print, the more obvious it becomes.

It was drilled into my head while I was in my graphic design program, that you never ever use photoshop for text. Either Illustrator or InDesign (that's more for multi-page documents but it works for typography pretty well too), or the equivalent competition software (Corel Draw, etc.)

Really?

I've made business cards using Photoshop and the text didn't look fuzzy at all.

Well, the text is also blurry, but i mean, the text is on a white background so even if the psd contains no pictures and only text, it will still be blurry! How do you create a 300dpi text? :S

When you create a new file, set the dpi to 300.

I think he was hoping to not have to create a new file, but fix the one he had.

Exact thoughts... :(

Well, there's no way of doing that, is there? You can change the file to 300dpi, but it won't resolve your sharpness issues, unfortunately.

It's better off to start fresh anyhow than try to correct a broken file. And this way, you know how to start off properly =]

Senna out of curiousity, did your cards get printed on a press or digital printer?

Inkjet printer, and a professional printer that specializes in printing business cards.