The right format and final compression are equally important as the quality of the photo and its proper scanning. Since PC's and MACs along with other machines are present in the computer world currently, proprietary file formats are no longer useful if you need to exchange files with those using other types of computers. An excellent solution for exchange lies in the web formats, but they are not contusive for storage purposes. Common file formats found today are BMP and TIFF.

BMP is the native Windows format, but has no advantages over TIFF other than support in Windows Paint. BMP is accurate but has poor compression and lacks the flexibility of TIFF. Use TIFF for archiving instead. While it is useless on the web, TIFF is the best format for storing originals and transporting files. TIFF is accurate and compresses well without quality loss. TIFF can also store all types of pictures, both simple and complex, B/W and color, photos and logos. TIFF is platform independent and versital working on both Mac's and PC's.