Scanning Old Photos in Photshop CS

[atct86]

I have en Epson Perfection 4990 Photo scanner, and am scanning old family images.

Im scanning at 800dpi at the highest jpeg quality and end up with 8-12mb images.

However when i rotate/edit in photoshop, the file size enlarges by alot?
Why is this happening?
Why dont they stay the original size?

Does this mean the JPEG is being compressed again and a reduction in quality is taking place?

Also, some general scanning and PS tips would be appreciated.

[davidspalding]

If you're referring to the .PSD file, it will change size depending on layers, etc. I'm still using 5.5 (CS2 ordered), though. Don't scan into a JPEG, do it either as a TIFF, or straight into a .PSD file. These are both "lossless" formats.

Somewhere on these forums, someone linked to an Adobe article about performance tuning for systems with > 1 gb RAM. If you search Adobe, you can probably find some good tips on scanning. Also, Googling for Adobe tips will yield more than a few very good sites with tips and tutorials.

If you're new to Photoshop, DEFINITELY do the tutorial that comes with it. It covers lots of the basics of the tools.

[atct86]

i am doing JPEG mainly for storage size. i really cant deal with 70MB plus images.

I have

200+ old photos
1800 35mm slides
300 2.25" slides

All which i think i want to scan as JPEGS

(The jpegs are the files that change size when resaved in photoshop)

[davidspalding]

No, no, no, trust me on this. Scan in Photoshop native format, do your basic sizing, rotating, color corrections, etc, THEN save as a JPEG.

See, JPEG is a lossy format, so you may lose information immediately on scanning ... which defeats some of Photoshop's power.

To answer your original questions:

1. Because it's a JPEG.
2. See #1.
3. Yes.

[tfflivemb2]

I would tend to agree with davidspalding on this one. Use your program's native sources to get the photo prepped for what you want to do, THEN save it as a jpeg.

[AlphaKilo470]

By following the advice given by the last few posts, you'd essentially be adding a premium to quality in the beginning in order to make up for quality loss in the end. By starting out with a high resolution and high quality format, you'll have more quality to be able to sacrifice until things become noticable.