sharpening images

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when I make an image on photoshop (6.0), how do I make it so that the image's edges are nice and sharp so that when I magnify the image, there's nothing blurry about the edge?

See, I'm trying to make the image sharp so that I can put the image on a transparency and then on an overhead projector and then trace the image. Can't do that when the image will wind up looking like this:

http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum ... d.php?t=41

You want a vector based illustration program to get clean lines--not Photoshop, which is vector based. The thread above explains the difference.

It's the only graphics program I have unless there's something free out there.

Well I dont know much about computer image editing.
I dont think there is any way to make it smoother when you zoom in.
When you zoom in you enlarge the pixels, making the image look enlarged.

http://inkscape.org/download/?lang=en
I found this open source program

Another option might be a free trial of something like Coreldraw

Neat! Thanks! Much better!

If you do use Photoshop or another raster image program, then switch off the anti-aliasing option, which is intended to soften edges to remove jagged steps.

that makes it look worse.

Of course it makes it look worse - the anti-aliasing provides and illusion of a smooth curve or smooth gradient on a raster image. Switching off aliasing creates sharp edges, like switching every pixel in your original image to either white or black. Increasing the size of the source image would keep a sharply defined edge that is also smoothly defined, but degrades with any scaling or rotation.

A vector graphics package scales the image to whatever raster it is displayed on. Scribus is fairly competent.

I'm sure you've heard the saying "garbage in, garbage out".

If the ORIGINAL IMAGE is small or blurry, you won't be able to fix that by magic. First you need an image with good quality.

Another option, press CTRL+ALT+I and change the resolution there.