Start in Super 8 filmmaking and see where it takes you.....

[Alex]

I first make a high resolution scan that is oversized from the original photo. The resolution is usually between 200 to 300 DPI. This file is quite large, perhaps between 5mb to 10mb. I call that my master scan. By the way, only scan the actual photo and not surrounding blank area.

I then resave it as master scan #2. (or whatever name you want) and do all of my contrast and color adjustments and hit save.

I then resave that as master scan #3. Here's the key step. before jpg'ing it I resize it down to the final size and I drop the resolution to 50, 60, or 72 DPI and I save that.

Now I resave that as master scan #4 or as #3.jpg and make it into a jpg.
The effective result is the original 5mb scan has been downconverted twice, first to 500K, then the jpg downconverts it again to 50K. The crazy part is the quality doesn't appear to suffer.

The reason I make so many versions is if I hate the final look, I can go back to the original untouched scan (master scan#1), and start over without ever having to rescan the photo.