Yeah, that's exactly what I did. Trust me, I'm not the type of person who edits originals. For every step of every media project I work on (photo, audio, video, etc), I only work on copies. Most of the time I'll copy the entire project's folder and work on that.

In this case I have a folder for the original scans, one for the photos split up, one for the cropped photos, and one for the exports from Picasa after the edits.

And yeah, I realize Tony's job was really good, but it also took far longer than this method, which at least is an improvement on the original scan, and returns some of the color. It's not perfect, but it's better. So in case I didn't answer earlier: this project (at least, this early run of it) is not meant for restoration or prosterity. This is so my mom can view pictures from her youth on her computer or the big TV. If we ever want to really preserve these images, I'll either take the time to do it right, or we'll pay a bunch to have it done.

Thanks for your help, everyone! This will be a good Christmas present because of you guys Happy holidays!