Gaild

oh, definitely never switch them to raster, smart objects are the only way to go

indeed, thank you!

For this particular map, yes

There's only one grid, depending on the physical size of the picture, the grid is 1inch - or smaller. At biggest currently this particular map is 16.5 inch high and 26 inches wide in print

Nope, didn't think 1 inch grids mattered, especially since the printing would be so expensive

For this map? Nope, my old system couldn't handle the 1inch grid at 300dpi so I planned to just have it print out at smaller sizes instead (figured most ppl were going to use it for online table top). For online use at 72dpi, the varying quality isn't as obvious, thank god.

People who bought it for print tho, started blowing it up at 200dpi. It turns out, they really want their 1inch grids for play with token miniatures at their local gaming store. The good thing is that once printed, people will be looking at it from across a table so the edges won't be as obvious (hopefully).

The graphic assets were purchased for commercial use from a third party cartographer. Now, if I were drawing the elements from scratch, I'd have them as vector art to maintain consistency, but this is more a hobby and to give back to the community. They don't have color maps for RPG adventures besides black and white marker drawings and this would allow for better immersion during the game. The only way to make any real money off it would be to get hired by the publishers, which is not happening.

Hi Damien, they're graphics created in photoshop at 300dpi - it's a comgination of these assets with transparent backgrounds over layers with textured patterns to simulate terrain. Stylistically its less realism and more comic in style - they require oversize printing though, since the smallest one is 14 inches in physical length

Hoping for some guidance - recently offered images for printing at 300dpi but the images needed to be physically bigger when printed - 150% bigger in fact, so I increased the pixels, forgot to turn off resampling (smoother) and used sharpening tools to try to maintain sharpness. 

The question: I was debating whether to work at 240 dpi as standard in future instead and increase the pixels to match the size requirements.

Or due to the lower dpi should I be working at a higher pixel size than required to compensate for the increase to 300dpi later on?

Technically, these aren't photos but cartography (maps for D&D) which will likely cover a table after being rolled out. But still would appreciate any help, thank you!