I'm work in archives at my college.. Just an assistant. We use the programs that came with the scanners. We save things in .tiff I was surprised by that. I thought photos were always JPEG but my supervisor says that Tiff doesn't degrade and JPEG will. So, there you go. Federally funded archival program, we scan 24 bit color, 600 dpi and save as tiff.
I've been taking my personal photos in and scanning during breaks. I use jotnot scan app on my phone for documents and have great results. Easy, much faster than a real scanner and clear legible results. I set the phone up on a nifty stand with a white background and lit it well. I wasn't as happy with results for photos, so I've taken them to work like I said.
Since thanksgiving I've gotten rid of at least 50 pounds of paper.