Film scanning - optimal settings?

I have been working on scanning my 35MM negatives so I can have a digital copy of everything. I actually had Costco do some of mine, but they just did kind of "OK". I think the scanned resolution was something like 72dpi. They apparently got a new machine, so it might be better, but I thought I might give it a whirl. I have a few hundred images, but probably not thousands.

The goal is to have a reasonable representation of my negative collection. Some of them aren't the greatest, some are fantastic, and most I'd probably not really do anything with but flip through every once in a while to reminisce (old friends, family, etc).

The scanner I am using is a Canon 8800F. Not the best thing ever, but it does a pretty decent job (as long as I can keep the extra fuzz off the film). Having a service to this is usually pretty expensive--usually at least $1.50 a frame--so other than Costco scanning them on my own, this is probably the way to go. I'd maybe consider having a select few done by a shop that has a drum scanner, but a very select few.

So, for the ones I really like, I've been doing the full capability of the scanner--9600DPI with "flexible" resolution in a TIFF format. This is usually about 13500x9000, and anywhere from 40MB (LZW compressed B&W) on up to about 350MB (color) negative. It also takes about an hour to scan 8 frames.

I figure hi-res TIFF is best for archiving, and I can actually notice a difference in the scan quality if the negative is good from the lower DPI.

What I'm really curious is--what would be a good format for everything else? I've started to play around with JPEG scans in various DPI and sizes, and think I've come up with one that is fairly decent. I scanned several at 300DPI, with a size of 3087x2048 (JPEG). This seems to be fairly quick, not any slower than lower DPI, but moving up tends to slow down pretty fast.

It's somewhat easier to make a good, backed up, digital archive of the prints, so I want a format/size that will be pretty dependable over time. I realize no format is safe, but TIFF and JPEG have been around a long time.

Does anyone have any other suggestions that might be better, maybe someone that uses this same scanner?

Scan in Tiff, if you scan in jpeg and modify the image and save it again in jpeg, you lose some data.
only save to jpeg if you need to downsize it to email or post somewhere.

also, your scan resolution should be chosen by what you plan on doing with the image. If you plan on printing larger than 8x10 or if you need to crop in on the image, then scan at higher res, if 8x10 is the max, then scan at lower resolution to save time and space.
Store the negatives in such a way that you can reference them easily by the file name you choose of the scanned file so if you do need to scan at a higher resolution in the future, you can find the negative faster.

I'm with Zepher on the format. JPEG is too lossy for archiving, especially high value images. Depending on how many you have to do, outsourcing may be a better way to go. I've heard mostly good things about ScanCafe and their prices are pretty good. If you sign up you will also get special offers. Every few months I see offers for 50% off.

http://www.scancafe.com/pricing

There are also other services out there to look at beyond Costco. And don't forget to factor in your time into the cost as well.

Yeah, TIFF I guess does make sense even for basic stuff. I guess it's difficult to scan to a purpose, when really the purpose is just mostly making a digital archive of my negative collection. It's easier to make a more durable archive with digital, as I use a ZFS file server and have decent backups. I do have a "fireproof" file cabinet, but it's rated to keep paper to "just getting singed" and not really to keep negatives intact.

There are definitely some images I'd like to get some nicer prints out of them, but like I said there's a lot of just friends & family that I'd just like to have albums to flip through occasionally or save for down the road--which I suppose album books are the answer to.

I actually have more stuff than I thought. I counted 84 PrintFile pages, which hold 28 frames, or 2,352 frames total. Some of the pages are only partial pages though, but it's still probably 2,000 images. I have looked into having it outsourced before, which seemed like pretty good deals, but for some reason lately most I've found are pretty pricey ($1+ a frame). Thanks for the ScanCafe link, it would still be at least $500 for a complete scan, but it is easier. I can let the scanner run while I am doing other things, but it does take a LOT of time.

You should scan film at twice the flatbed scanner's true resolution. My Epson V500 has a actual resolution around 1200 to 1600 dpi (differs vertical and horizonal). I scan at 3200 dpi, then downsize the picture in Photoshop back to a resolution of 1600. Doing the downsize after the scan will result in a bit sharper of a picture that looks better than had you scanned straight at 1600dpi. The scanning software Vuescan can do this for you.

The 9600 dpi is way overkill. This reports says your scanner's actual resolution is about 1600. So scan at 3200 dpi.

I would recommend scanning at 48bit and saving in 48bit tiffs. Scanning at 24 bit provides less opportunity for editing in the future. This is a similar situation to using RAW files with your camera instead of shooting JPGs. If you save 24bit tiffs you don't gain much over just using JPG at 100% quality - the only thing you gain is larger file size.

I have scanned over 200 rolls of 32mm on two CanoScan FS4000US scanners. And at least 20 rolls of 120mm film on my Epson V500 flatbed scanners. The software I use to scan is Vuescan and the processing software is Lightroom. If you think Vuescan might be worth it I'd, highly recommend you use Vuescan's advanced workflow where you take 5 minutes to profile the base color of the film roll you are scanning. Results in better colors, blacks and whitebalance. I didn't do this for my first 100 rolls and I wish I had.

What software are you using to scan?

Thanks MN Scout--that is some good info.

Currently I am using the CanoScan software, and use the scanner driver (instead of the software driver). I did a lot of reading on Vuescan and Silverfast quite some time ago, and totally forgot about it. It exports to a woefully outdated Photoshop Elements (7!). I've been planning to upgrade to Lightroom, and I've been looking a little at Digikam and some of the other alternatives--but probably go with Lightroom.

I haven't really been doing much editing for quite some time, mostly just shooting (digital) & scanning, bu I really need to get back into it. The old version of Elements has some issues with larger file sizes, and is kind of limited in some of its features.