File format for scanning B&W photograph

[snazz]

I am working on a report for the Park Service in Word 2000. They have several black and white photographs they would like inserted into the document at various places. What file format would be the best to save these in when scanning them (i.e. TIF, JPG, GIF, BMP)? This document not only will be printed but also eventually added to a web site. Thanks to anyone with suggestions! [img]/w3timages/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

[KTYorke]

From everything I've ever seen and heard, jpg is the best format for pictures in both a document and on the web. This is for file size as well as presentation. Gifs and bmps, although larger in file size are used for graphics and animation.
bmps take a LONG time to load though... so watch it on the web.
have fun
<font color=6495ed><font face="Comic Sans MS"><font class="bigger">KT</font size=big></font face=comic></font color=6495ed>

[peterl]

I've always has the best results including files in PNG format (Portable Network Graphics). I've heard this is the format Word stores images internally. GIFs no good normally because it only has 256 colours (that's not a problem in your case, as B&W files will only have 256 colours - shades of gray). BMP is an uncompressed format, so the files are too big. JPG compresses the files ina lossy way, so they lose quality, but the file size is much smaller. If you're going to email the file or file size is critical, consider JPG.

[Cheryl]

Be careful with images saved as jpg when scanning. I've found that with some scanning software you get a far better result if you save the image as bmp when first scanning. Then you can convert it into jpg with photo editing software. Check this if you get a poor result by scanning straight into jpg format.

[gwhitfield]

Hi,

I'd check out both jpgs and gifs. Each format is suitable for different purposes. See which gives you the better result, and the smaller size.

When I've had a single page to scan, which had to be used on multiple documents, I found that the gif gave a smaller file- but then, I was able to edit it under PaintShop Pro to 2 colours.