What file format to save in

[Gail]

I have hundreds of photos I want to scan in on my Canoscan. When all is said and done it will probably be thousands. I'm worried about huge file formats if I save them all in TIFF format. Can I scan my photos into a portable hard drive as Jpegs at a low compression and when I want to make adjustments to a photo save them into Picassa as a TIFF file and then do my cropping, color adjustments, etc. so that I don't lose any picture quality?

[cicopo]

I haven't done this in several years but when I did I found it better to scan & save as TIFF's which as you already know creates big files. Scanners & software have improved since then but what I'd try is to save the same file as a jpg (lowest compression) and as a TIF & then convert the TIF to a jpg & compare both to see if one looks better than the other. If you can't see a difference then just save as jpg's.

[Gail]

Good idea, thanks!

[aclink]

now with the development of technology, the scanner is able to read big size tiff file. so it won't be a problem to save image as tiff format. just give a try.  i have done it , working well for me anyway.

[lilycan]

if you don't want your photo take so much places in your pc and you have a lot of pictures, tiff format may not be the ideal format fodr you. jpeg image file seems good with jpeg compression scheme.