G'day Kat,

Generally, publishers will happily settle for a TIFF scan at 300 dpi of the final printed image size. (That's not necessarily the same as the original photo print size.) As long as you haven't mucked up the contrast and density (i.e. - your scan looks good on screen ... and a standard print-out) then the printing shop has adequate resolution, and some reserve, for normal process printing ... and that's the way most modern small printing jobs are delivered.

When I scan photographs of high interest, I normally save as TIFF (compressed). This uses a Run Line Compression (possible that referred to as RLE, above) and this is "lossless" but not always much of a compression. If I am sharing the photos by email, I create a sub-folder where I place mid-compression JPG cpoies (the settings vary according to different apps) reduced to a good screen size - (~) 800 x 600 pixels for full-screen display and 640 x 480 for caption photos or inserts into an e-mail.

Use the JPGs to swap picture, but jealously guard your 300 dpi TIFFs (and carefully preserve the original prints/film!)

Regards,

Bob Bolton