The scanner program is DOS-only, and is Windows-hostile. The scanner is a piece of shit. It's really only 100DPI, but worse, the dynamic range totally sucks. I don't know where the "256 levels" are (or maybe the useful dynamic range requires more bits). This is really the worst part of these cheap scanners. The scanner software will convert the image from 256- to 16-level greyscale and not once could I see any difference -- but 16-levels makes for 1/5th the file size, generally.
Under Windows I use Paintbrush for recovering detail loss, titling, etc, and LVIEW for image manipulation (cropping, etc). I do everything in Windows *.BMP format (all my DOS/Windows programs handle it), then convert to *.GIF for export. On unix I use xpaint, which pretty much looks like a Macintosh paint program. It's OK, except it takes 10 (ten) minutes to generate the color wheel the first time I go to add a color! A lot of software weenies I know won't mix tools and media, but I'm no purist. I frequently rely on plain old (as if!) xerography to manipulate images before scanning. For example: the WPS logo of the boy with the radio I found in a 1923 radio electronics book. It was about 3in/8cm square, black ink on yellowing paper. Using a Canon "laser" black and white commercial copier I blew it up, enhanced contrast, and converted to pure black on white, in one step. For 25 cents. And I don't have to maintain the equipment.
Then I scanned it, cropped it, and using Paintbrush filled in the damaged pixels. Using LVIEW, I raised contrast to 100% to kill off all the "color" (ie. greyscale), thereby shrinking the file. Then I added the text etc with Paintrush, and in a final pass through LVIEW converted to a GIF file.
The photographs were scanned directly (since not coincidentally the scanner is sized correctly for them). Processing is the same as above, except I skip the Paintbrush step, LVIEW handling everything. I usually crop photos as much as possible to minimize file size (ie. transfer time, server to client).
One of the biggest annoyances scanning things like photographs is the damned things slip around on the desk when you try to roll the scanner head over them. My solution: tape a piece of white cardstock to the desk. Tape two POST-IT squares, sticky side up, to the white card. Place photos on the POST-ITs. No more slippy. Lasts long enough.