“Decent flatbed scanners cost less than $100 these days and they have the software to prove it. Spend more money and you get better scanning optics, higher resolution, but usually the same crummy scanning software,” Mincey writes. “Scanner software seems to be an afterthought by most scanner manufacturers.”
Mincey writes, “Through the years I’ve used many different scanner apps. Those that came with the scanner. More complex, high end apps like the SilverFast AI package, and my favorite, VueScan. When other scanner apps stop working, or don’t work with older scanners, VueScan becomes the little scanner app that can.”
Full article here.
VueScan is hand for times when OEM scanner software hasn’t kept up with MacOS changes.
Neat article but wish it has gone more indepth…I’ve always wondered why so many people like VueScan. I downloaded it for my Epson v500 and couldn’t tell any difference in the scans it produced and the ones the software that came with my Epson produced. Is the only reason to use Vuescan is that you included software quits working or is just to “clunky” to use day in and day out? Does it actually produce “better” scans?
btw…First???
My wife is a Graphic Artist and loves VueScan. It is a very nice application for a very reasonable price.
If you have a Fuji scanner you should use Scantango. Great software.
Agreed. VueScan has been my app of choice for years. It’s almost the only software that supports my elderly HP ScanJet at work as well as my spiffy new Canon multi-function device at home. Clean interface with a ton of options.
What’s wrong with Image Capture, which comes with every Mac? It may not have text recognition, but it is certainly easy to use and has enough features for most folks.
Vuescan is also extremely good at preventing moiré patterns when you’re scanning printed images (descreening). When I have something that needs to be descreened, I use VueScan rather than the included driver for my Epson scanners.
Another vote for VueScan — had it forever and always been happy. Plus, I like to support the small developer (yeah Scrivener!).
Who cares how crummy the scanner app is, so long as it scans the image!
Who are these people that spend $79.95 on an app that scans, when they already have an app that scans for free with the scanner?
I mean, how hard can it be to scan an image? You pick the desired image quality,and then press the scan button.
There are obviously plenty of idiots willing to part with their money, and I applaud the developers ability to extract that money. A fool and their money are soon parted…
I guess when your scanner manufacturer no longer supports your scanner for the new OS you just upgraded to, you’ll just buy a new scanner. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense! Me, I’ll stick with VueScan, because I know the developer won’t leave me hanging, but will continue to update his software.
5 Stars for VueScan. It’s been on my Macs forever. It just works.
On. All. Scanners.
I work with some Mac users who have the SilverFast scanner apps (we’re talking big money here), and often there’s little difference in the scans. Quality comes from the scanner. Ease of use comes from the software. Plus, VueScan gets updated about every week.
How about when a scanner maker no longer makes drivers or software available for your perfectly capable hardware?
I picked up Vuescan way back at the OSX change over because UMAX wasn’t releasing a driver I could use with my nearly new scanner.
I have since been able to get Vuscan updates (FREE for life) to maintain the use of my scanner through the Intel transition, and all major and minor OS updates since.
So to paraphrase, There are obviously plenty of idiots willing to open their mouths and mock what they have no understanding of.
Fine Reader 5 is a nice one. Good transcription too.
True dat re: VueScan.
(Sorry, been hanging around my patients too much)
Image Capture is perfectly adequate. It is simple while still providing plenty of options.
I used Vuescan for years and was always happy with it. But Image Capture gets the job done just as well.
For slides and photos I just discovered the Wolverine F2D. I used it to scan about 200 slides in 6 hours. The quality is pretty good (images about 2 MB in size for 35mm slides. Works well and, is independent of the computer. Files go directly to a SDHC card which you can just move to your computer. There is a model that will do 4×6 photos that is likely to be just as good.
Just thinking about scanners makes my head explode…
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Actually, I’ve been a Vuescan Pro user for years.
Always works, even on my wi-fi networked Canon.
Not really a quality article, now is it.
I don’t know VueScan and I cannot/will not say whether is good of bad, but I do know that the article lacks any funding for claiming the quality of any scanner application.
First of all, the quality of your scan is determined by the quality of the scanner and the quality of the driver software. As a Mac user, not a Mac nerd, I don’t even want to see the software driver.
Next to that, if you really want to compare the scanner front-end software, you will also have to compare the purpose of the scan.
Image scanner was already mentioned before as a sufficient front-end, built in right in Mac OS X. No additional applications required. And this works fine for scanning images.
Another great scanner front-end, especially when you’re scanning documents for storage and retrieval is also delivered right with your OSX. It’s called preview. Where most of my scanning activities are document related, preview is my best scanning assistant. Most certainly with the, once again out of the OSX box provided, network scanning support. Meaning that when the scanner is connected to any Mac on your network, you can scan from any other Mac, using preview.
Dedicated graphic scans I usually do directly from Photoshop, or any of the other drawing tools that I use.
Now once again, I don’t know VueScan, but so far the article and all the comments did not convince me that I need to look at it. So please tell me, what’s the magic of it?
I have been very happy with Scantango software for my Fuji fi-6130. It outputs OCR text to pdfs and scans quickly. The software is a bit expensive, however.
I have also used ReadIRIS Pro 11 with Canon flatbed scanners. The combination is very slow, primarily because of the double preference boxes that have to be clicked through before the scan actual takes place. The accuracy rate is pretty good.
If you are doing OCR for PDFs, Adobe Acrobat for Mac is outstanding.
If you need a quick scan of a document, then Image Capture is great, it’s built-into the Mac OS and it’s free.
If you need better control over the scan, like with photos, then Vuescan is pretty ubiquitous, supporting lots of scanners.
@Jafo, it helps to read the whole article, I guess. Too many big words? As the author says, scan quality is usually a product of the scanner’s optics, not so much the software. Magic? As the article says, Vuescan is very fast, works on many hundreds of scanners, is not complicated, and OCR is built in, plus you can try it out for free. You need more?
Image Capture
Buy a Twain Scanner and bypass all that shit.
Have a lifetime license ($29.99 back in the day) for VueScan Pro that I bought back when Mac Scanner Drivers were Classic or none and it was the only native OS X option.
Because Hamrick is very responsive to customer needs and supported OS X very early on, they will always get props from me.
PS
OCR via DevonThink Pro Office.
once i upgraded to snow leopard, i’ve been using image capture to scan everything on my hp printer/scanner. it works great
@Are you kidding me! – Crappy software yields scans that either suck or have huge bloated file sizes. The software that came with my HP produced PDFs 3 and 4 times bigger than Vuescan and was much harder to use. The Snow Leopard broke it and HP hasn’t updated it. I’m a satisfied VueScan customer – hasn’t let me down yet.
If you need to scan directly from a scanner into FileMaker Pro, try the outstanding InsideScan plug-in. No intermediary software necessary.