hi everyone.
hope someone can help with my queery.
after a few years of tinkering with a bit of basic photo editing using my 3 year old version of ms Pictur It 7.0, im ready to step up to some more serious stuff like restoring about 500 old family photos i inherited from my parents (circa 1915 to 1965)
i initially bought the new ms PhotoShop picture it premium 10, thinking cos i liked the old version, this might suffice, anyway, as it turned out it was missing a few of the features that the older version 7.0 had, so i took the plunge and got a copy of Photoshop Elements 3.0 which appears to be a much better program like all the reviews say it is.

all the old photos (some sepia, some b&w) varied in size from the old 2"x2" up to some 6"x4" and others a bit bigger, and i scanned them all at 300dpi scan resolution and 75dpi output resolution.
i now need to do some restoration work and RESIZE the photos in elements using the "image>resize>image size" section and resizing using the resolution setting to increase the pixel size of the photos.

QUESTION, do i resize the photos first, saving them as a new seperate file from the original, then do the touch-ups and restoration work after i have resized, or do i do the restorations first and save them as new files, then resize the finished photos after all the work has been done.

my thoughts were that i should RESIZE first then do the restoration work, saving each step as i go so as not to mess it up and have to start again.
some of the photos, as small as they are, have wasted bits on them i can crop out like lots of sky or scenery etc, do i leave the photos as they are and do the repairs and resizing on the whole photo, then do the cropping and additional resizing at the time i want to print them.

i hope i have made sense, maybe not, but if i was able to get to a photo editing school or similar i would take lessons, but sadly im not able to and learning this stuff on my own is fun and quite a challenge but just need a bit of advice.

thanks in advance for your thoughts (if any) much appreciated.....GLEN