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I don't know where to start!!!
I don't want to spend 6 months getting all my best photos scanned and find out I labeled them wrong or scanned at the wrong setting/dpi.
I am thinking about trying to use Picaso but worry the photo resolution will be reduced from the scan.
So my basic questions
1) info on how to scan
2) picaso verses photo elements to start to organize/edit/share.
The best scanning resolution depends on what you want to do with the images after they're scanned.
If you want to be able to make prints from them, a good resolution is 300 pixels per inch (ppi). To make a good 4x6 print you'd want your scanned image to be 1200x1800 pixels. Larger prints would require larger files. I wouldn't plan to make larger reprints than your original prints. If you want to go larger than the original prints, have scans made from your original negatives.
For sharing on the internet/email, you'll want a resolution of around 80 ppi, so for 4x6 (on monitor) pictures, you'll want scanned images of 320x4800. On some monitors these would appear smaller than 4x6 and on some larger than 4x6.
You'll normally want to save them as jpegs -- average compression or less for internet use (more compression means smaller/faster files) and less compression for prints.
I suggest Adobe Elements for amateur image editing. It's powerful software for the price and has advantages that I won't attempt to explain in a short post, but if the $100 or so price tag bothers you, Picasa also has lots of loyal followers.
Sorry, I've never used any of the software for organizing photos. I have my own system that works fine -- folders arranged by subject and date -- and as a professional photographer, I've got tens of thousands of pictures on my drives.
I was in the printing business and we had our customers scan everything at 300 dpi, and if we did the scanning we also scanned at 300 dpi. And they were used for very high quality printing.
You can experiment by scanning and then enlarge the scan to see how large you can before it starts to bitmap.
And if you can get yourself a full version of Photoshop... Great program..
I have tried using Pixma and i must say that it's a good scanner..
The new one is the PIXMA 620 and it is wireless. I cannot believe it...I paid 200 for mine from HSN over a year ago and this new model was in all the sale papers today for 99 bucks! What a deal! I might just buy another and put it away, it is that good of a Printer/Copier/Scanner!
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Pixma MP600
