Anytime you have an image in any editing program (like Paint, which comes with Windows, or whatever came with the scanner), you have the option of saving the image in different file formats.

To see this choose File; Save As. There will the two spots: one for the file name, and the other for the file type. Many programs default to a file type of "Windows Bitmap (*.BMP)". This WAS the most popular file format, so that is what most programs still default to. What you want to do is change the type to "JPEG File Interchage Format (*.JPG)".

What's difference? BMP files store each and every pixel (dot) of the image as seperate information in the file. JPEG files use some mathematical compression to store things more efficiently. Example: of you had a square picture that was nothing but blue, the BMP would write each blue dot as seperate information in the file. The JPEG would say: "make the next 50,000 dots blue". There is SOME loss in detail for JEPGs, but you would never see it with chips. You don't need to do anything special with the file once you have saved it as a JEPG. Any modern browser or painting program can read/write them.

And as someone else pointed out, you do NOT want to scan anything at more than 100 dots per inch (72 dpi is fine). Most monitors only display around 72 dots per inch, so anything more is a waste (and makes your image look HUGE!). If you are scanning something to be printed, you DO want to scan at a high resolution, more like 300 dpi.

I hope this helps. Here is an EXCELLENT link to a site with all sorts of advice on scanning.

Good Luck!

- Bob