Don't use CD's use DVD's, cheap and hold lots more data.

By the sound of it as long as you save in the highest quality jpg it will
work okay, of course you should do a few tests to see if the result is
acceptable. Remember a 400Gb drive is only $150.

DON'T!
Scan to .TIFF, then edit, THEN save to .jpg.  Do it in batches, then, if
you must, delete the .TIFF files.  It is probably cheaper to get a
really large external disk drive than to mess with all those CD/DVD backups.

How many do you expect to use in this book?
Why scan them all at this standard, when perhaps 1% will ever be used.
Scan them all at a nominal 300DPI at 6x8, view them , decide which you want
, and spend your time scanning the quality ones.
Been there, seen it, done it, and now I have shoeboxes full of CD's that
never even get opened.!!

Keep work in progress as TIFF files and save the final result as high
quality JPEGs. Any that are really good keep the TIFF as well.

Unless you know exactly what to look for and there is suitable detail in
the target photographic image the difference between a first generation
JPEG and the original is beyond the ability of the human eye to
distinguish. Line artwork and pathological patterns can be constructed
that will give JPEG a headache but even then the losses are small.

Regards,
Martin Brown

You will see a lot of advice on the "best" way to do this.  But, there is
always a cost/benefit to doing anything and you need to decide if the extra
cost of the file size is worth the difference in image quality (as an
example, people will look for lower cost gas to save money, but will they
drive 55 instead of 65 to get better mileage?  Cost vs benefit).

I've done some tests on my own images.  There is obviously a difference
between JPG and TIFF (otherwise why would everyone recommend TIFF).  The
question is, is there enough of a difference.  For my own images, I decided
no.  I'd rather save the space.  In my opinion, you will have a difficult
time noticing the differences between a TIFF and a 2nd generation JPG
printed at 6x8.  Is there a difference, sure.  Side by side you will say
the TIFF looks better.  But as you said, these are for a guide book not for
hanging on a wall.  Will you be happy with the JPG version?  I'm guessing
yes, but only you can tell.

So, my recommendation is, scan a negative twice, saving one as TIFF the
other as JPG.  Make the same change to both.  Save the TIFF as TIFF and the
JPG as JPG again.  Then print both final images 6x8.  See if you care about
the difference.

When you decide what you want to do, I recommend while working on the image
to save in the format of your image software until you are done making
changes.  The one hour changes may take a couple of sessions.

BTW, another option would be to scan at TIFF and convert to PNG (or scan to
PNG if your scanning software allows it).  PNGs are about 1/3rd the size of
TIFFs.  Downside is less software supports PNG and they are much slower to
open and close.

Steve

This is why they invented DVDs :-).  The latest 16x drives (or have
they gone up another level in the week since I last looked?) can be
had *amazingly* cheaply -- like under $50 for a quality internal
drive.

I do recommend having multiple optical media copies, ideally on
different brands of media, before you even *think* of relying on them
as your only copy of anything important.

Your time estimates look spot on to me.  If you're seriously thinking
of spending that much *time*, I'd suggest you work *very* hard to find
the money to avoid making other compromises.  The time is generally
the most expensive part of this sort of project.  

It varies tremendously based on the compression level chosen.  At
Photoshop jpeg levels of 4 and below, you can often see very obvious
posterization in areas of even tone, especially background areas.  At
levels up to 7 you can often see differences when you click preview on
and off, but they're quite minor, around the edges of things.  

At Photoshop level 10, you're not likely to notice anything, and that
still compresses fairly effectively.

(The levels I cite are rough impressions; I'm not claiming there are
"magical changes" as you move the jpeg level through those values,
just trying to give a rough impression of the kinds of things you'll
see in various ranges.)

It's easy, of course, to grab a relatively small number of pictures
and play around with the jpeg levels, then load them up and look at
them and really see for yourself.  I do find that the Photoshop
preview often looks much better than that same photo does when I view
it on the web later.  I can't tell if this is a failure in preview, or
if photoshop simply does a better job of displaying pictures on the
screen.  But it's worth using other viewers to check your results, in
my experience.

Given the range of uses you talk about, sharpening before saving isn't
a good idea, by the way; because those uses will have rather different
optimum sharpening parameters most likely.

First off let me say that there is no big problem with saving the scans
as tiffs.  Having said that in reading some of the post here one would
think that jpg is no capable of storing anything close to a excellent
photo, this is simply not true.  I this photo below I started with a
raw file from a 20D and converted it to a 16 bit / color psd format
using photoshop elements.  I then took this file and converted it to 8
bits and saved as a jpg at quality setting 12 (again in PSE).  I then
copied half the jpg image on top of the 16 bit psd photo.

http://www.sewcon.com/temp/half_and_half.psd

Now anybody who is any good at photoshop at all can tell in a minute
which side is which by checking the color depth.  But can you do any
kind of edit to the photo that will made the difference show up, at
least any kind of an edit that you would ever really do to a photo?

For anyone who cares here are the jpg version and psd versions of the
photo
http://www.sewcon.com/temp/jpg.jpg
http://www.sewcon.com/temp/clean.psd

I should note that no all software will allow saving to a very low
level of compression and I should also point out that scans of film
don't compress well as jpgs because of the noise in them from grain
(or dye clouds if you prefer).  But this means that you will end up
with a pretty large jpg, not that you will end up with a poor jpg, that
is if the software that is saving as a jpg is doing its job right.

If you are going to spend all that time, I would save in the best possible
format possible.  Hard drive space is relatively cheap, the worst part is
the time involved in scanning.

If you are printing a book, the publisher is going to want final size x
300dpi (ppi in the photoworld) in uncompressed tif format. Scanning is
a big time grabber, you would do best by editting the images first,
triage the edit, book 1st (especially if you are still selling your
idea to publishers), stuff you still like 2nd, the rest third. Scan in
packs if "the rest" don't get scanned fine. You can keep the slides
anyway.
Scan the ones for the book twice to size in the book layout and at 8x10
@ 300dpi. Why 8x10, it is what publishers want to see. It is a big
file, about 30mb, but worth doing if you want to go in the publishing
direction. Also save everything in uncompressed tifs, printers have an
unrational fear of anything else, even compressed tifs. The last book I
worked on, about two years ago, I was told by the printer that lzw
compressed tifs screwed up the image. Printers are a tough bunch, but
when your work depends on them, you do what they say. They can make you
look very bad if they don't like you.
To catalogue your files set up a simple database for each of your CDs.
If you want something more visual use Extensis Portfolio.  

Tom