Saving scanned documents/photos

Question

I have a Canon MG6450 scanner, which I truly despise, but I don't seem to be able to save the scanned stuff anywhere and open it without using Finder or Preview.
Disregarding the scanner doesn't do anything I find at all useful, where am I supposed to save the scans and what do I use to open them? If I save in pictures I can't open them using iPhoto, keynote, pages or any of the programs that arrived with the mac, despite being assured that I could. It's a real pain having to use finder because I can't remember all the dates used or filenames, obviously!
II also have a major problem with email because I haven't worked out how to use Apple's mail client - I'm really that stupid - and hotmail is just the worst for compatibility issues, slowness and just being plain ugly. And nothing from my mac will upload so there's a real problem, I'm just glad I don't depend on it too much for my business, which would be bankrupt if I did.
Anyway, any help will be gratefully received, I really don't want to regret buying an iMac but they are nowhere near as intuitively easy to use as what's claimed, in fact not easy to use at all.

Answer 1

I've been away for a couple of weeks but thank you for your replies, still no nearer to being able to use saved scans or indeed any pdf file that I've downloaded.
Now I know what iPhoto is for I can ignore that completely - thank you Barney  - but still impossible to open pdf files with anything other than finder, provided I can find it in the first place! Even then, the option of sharing it is not usually there, and certainly no way of inserting any meaningful text by way of explanation of why a recipient should get a message with the title "This message has no content".
Helpful replies really will be gratefully received (and no, I have no idea how to copy and paste highlighted text on the forum either) but I don't need to be told I have no idea how to use a £1200 mac. Because that's why I'm asking and what the support community is for, so please, just a little shared knowledge because this computer just won't do anything I expect.
I've read the comments above, no good asking me "why not?" because I don't know, only that it should be possible, so I ask again: why can't I open a saved pdf file with pages, keynote or numbers? Or share them? Or attach to an email? Or decide where they're saved? Or decide what the file name is?
It can't be that difficult, I don't need to be subjected to ridicule, simply assisted and maybe I'll be assured a purchase for my business is going to enhance it and not just make a big hole in my accounts ledger.