You can't set the resolution in illustrator because it defaults to print rez. 300 dpi.

what you can do is stretch the logo and trace it using illustrators tools.

Your background pattern is made for screen resolution. try and find one that is about 5 times bigger.

Is there a chain icon in illustrator? if not you can probably select two layers with the ctrl button in the layer pallette.

also because illustrator uses shapes you can use the direct selection tool and grab them. then group them together.

Working in illustrator is the same as working in CURVES with Photoshop. Do that instead!

joelf, thanks for the answers. What does this mean:

Your background pattern is made for screen resolution. try and find one that is about 5 times bigger.

I mean, I understand what you're saying but I like the pattern a lot and don't want to find another one. What happens if I use this one? Will it be blotchy or... ?

I have a backaground pattern (middle column, bottom row) that I want to use but it's so tiny and at 72dpi... what will the result be when the thing is printed?

Let's say that you're printing this on a 300dpi printer. That means the printer wants to lay down 300 dots of ink per inch of paper.

But your pattern doesn't have 300 dots-per-inch to give the printer. So what does the printer do? I'm going to pretend that your pattern is 100dpi, not 72dpi, so that the math is easier: the print wants 300 dots, the pattern only has 100 dots, so the printer must make each dot three-times the size in order to fill the gaps. The dots will be big enough to bee seen as dots, so the image will get that ugly, pixelated look.

People try to get around this by "upping" the resolution of the image before printing, but this doesn't work, either. If you go into Photoshop and up the resolution from 100 to 300, Photoshop will add the extra pixels -- but what color should they be? Photoshop has no choice but to invent colors that weren't in the original image, and since it's a computer -- not an intelligent mind -- it can't do this very well.

This is why, if you want images to print well at a reasonable size, you really do need large images -- images with enough pixels-per-inch. If anyone could ever figure out a way to print your low-res image in a large size on a high-res printer -- and make it look good -- they'd be an instant multi-billionaire. And I think they'd also have magic powers.

Illustrator really is the way to go, especially with logos, which we tend to want to print at all different sizes (business cards, letterheads, sides of vans). But it's a complex piece of software, and you'll have to spend some time learning it (or pay someone to create the pattern for you). If you want to learn it, I recommend lynda.com.

Thanks, grumblebee... however, isn't what you're saying only the case if I send the printer a design done at 100lpi? What if I create a 300dpi image in the software and then fill the bg with the pattern, which is 72dpi? won't it just use 3 times as many instances of the pattern rather than triple the size of each instance?

And grumblebee, I posted card images in this Ask thread, if those are of any help.