Fix old photos in The GIMP

Hi, I just watched Nick Veitch's tutorial from March of 2009 titled "Fix old photos in The GIMP" and I have an additional question. I'm quite new to GIMP and really any sort of advanced editing...I'd classify myself as novice.

I am trying to scan photos from my childhood and then I'll tackle a boat-load that are much older.  What I am finding in most of them is once I scan them, there are white dots all over the image.  Not dust per se, but dots.  Looks like really bad dandruff (in hair or clothing) and a lot of the time it's grainy looking to use an old film term.  Mostly it shows up in the darker areas (black dresses, dark suits, woodwork, etc etc).  It's usually not something that I'm happy with just using the "Despeckle" filter to blur out as the whole picture winds up looking more out of focus than they already are.  I have discovered I can select certain areas of a photo individually and do that, such as a dark dress where the texture isn't important.  But in other areas that's not necessarily possible.

Is there a tutorial available that I haven't found that talks about that?  Is it a matter of the resolution or other settings that I'm scanning at?  (I've cleaned the scanner glass on both sides, btw.)  Maybe there's a plug-in I haven't seen yet that handles it without "softening" the entire (or part) of a picture?

Thanks for any pointers/help/suggestions,

Matt Lehning