Thank you, Elizabeth, for your quick help! You were asking how I was planning to use the images. First of I would like to digitize all the old, mostly b&w familiy pictures I have. From what I understand from this list, this would mean an "archival size copy" of each in the best possible quality. Since .jpg format loses quality every time it is saved, I should go with the .tif format, correct? Of course other & future uses would include reports, family history book(s), website, e-mail etc. For those, if I am reading your mail correctly, I would scan the pictures in .jpg format (which I have been doing anyway for several years). So, when you are saying to plan on having organized sets, what do you mean by that? Different file formats at different resolutions for each picture? What do you see as the best way to do this? Do you scan all these different formats/resolutions at once, or at the time you need a particular picture, i.e. do you later go back to your original and scan it again at the setting you need? I am asking this because scanning each and every picture several times, including cropped versions could quickly make this a question of space. I also noticed from your posts here that you put great emphasis on backup copies (so do I!). I was just wondering how you organize your backups, i.e do you use more than one backup file for each original? I assume you are mainly using CDs as medium? Thanks again for all your help. Irene -----Original Message----- From: E.Rodier [mailto:cerear@telusplanet.net] Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2002 3:31 PM To: VINTAGE-PHOTOS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [VINTAGE-PHOTOS] Difference in tif Formats How do you plan to *use* the images? Try a full project scanning pictures, adding to a family book report or web page, adding details about the pictures to the files and reprinting or update a web page. My largest single word processor file has 50 images and largest family database in FTM has 750 inserted pictures. Usually save JPG images of family pictures scanned to the size for a specific purpose. Uncompressed TIF images are large files if you need to share attachments to e-mails. My favorite image software doesn't refer to Group 4. Uncompressed TIF images are sometimes more efficient than high quality JPG for source documents with limited colors. Some genealogy programs allow uncompressed TIF and some don't allow TIF at all. One archival size copy of each image is not enough. Plan organized sets of images that can be backed up as the organization changes over time and newer copies of backups sets are stored in remote locations. Elizabeth