digitize analog b/w and color pictures

Hey folks,
I am about to digitize my old analog pictures and was wondering, if you can give me some advice.

I have an HP Photosmart C3180 Multifunction Printer.

I use MS Windwos 7 Enterprise 32-Bit on my Laptop.

The Pictures I want to digitize are in color and b/w.

I decided to scan the pictures with a resolution of 4000dpi to have enough elbowroom for cropping.

Therefore, that I have quite a lot of pictures I would love to place 2 or more depending on there size on the scanner, but I can't find this feature in the Software of the Scanner.
So I decided to install another Software.

I tried Vuescan 9 (only the trial edition), but i breaks down all the time after scanning. I couldn't find a feature for scanning multiple pictures to multiple files. What I like on Vuescan is, that I can make an automated Color correction, store as scan raws, etc.

So I searched a little more and found Nuance PaperPort 12. I remember to owned it with my first HP Scanner 15 years ago or so.

Can you give me some tips on other Software?
Which File-Format should I use? 16bit-Tiff or jpg?


thanks and kind regards winam

If these are prints then there's no reason to scan at 16-bit because 8-bit will exceed what's on the paper. Also, there's no reason to scan at 4000 because the scanner probably can't do any better than 1800. The sensor certainly can record that high, but the crappy glass and lens compromise its potential. All you'll do is have a high pixel count image without any improvement in resolution. Keep in mind that a 4000 ppi scan is 4x the size of a 2000 ppi scan.

If you're scanning prints I don't know if I'd bother scanning any higher than 600 dpi. I'm not sure if scanning any higher would yield any more detail.

Even a little 4x6 inch print scanned at 4000 ppi would make an 8 bit tif that is nearly 1 GB. An 8x10 would be 3.7 GB. Not only would that fill up your hard disc mighty fast, any attempt to edit them would probably crash the software.

Thanks folks,
I will consider your hints. Maybe your're right. I will try to scan in different dpi-levels to see the difference before i scan all pictures.

Don't bother, 8bit at 600dpi is more information than there is on the print.

I haven't done any scanning for a bunch of years, but when scanning prints I was pretty satisfied with a 600ppi tiff scan. They are indeed large files, but if the original print is good, they can make decent prints at say 8x10.

You might want to browse this site. http://scantips.com/
Lots of good info. Generally, most recommendations for scanning prints is 300 dpi, as you're limited by the amount of detail in the print itself. B&W prints have a bit more detail so maybe 400 dpi, or so. Negatives and slides are a different thing as they are the originals. Those can be scanned at the higher resolutions.