“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.
@K macK. Thank you for the compliment. Too many hollow words indeed, in the complete article. Hardware is mentioned indeed, but driver is failing yet a very important part to influence scan quality.
Fast: that’s relative, an unquantified measurable.
Works worth many hundreds of scanners: I think I already have many scanners with 3 scanners in the house. All with good drivers.
OCR: actually, it says OCR for english. Pretty useless argument for me, when most of my documents are not English.
Free trail: I didn’t pay a cent/yen/dime extra for the alternatives I mentioned. And these ain’t trails but full solutions.
Again, weak arguments without any body. Where is the magic? Why should I even bother attempting the trail?
Image Capture plus edit with either iPhoto or Preview. I use photoshop but the built in apps do great and more efficient job. If you edit in iPhoto, it doesn’t destroy the original file. You can always go back to the original settings (iPhoto 09)
@ Are you kidding me!
Some OS X scanner software and drivers, such as what came with my low end Canon scanner, completely suck. By that I mean there is a complete lack of options for capturing documents and images, and being unreliable, buggy software. Even spending a bit more money on a better scanner usually gives you the same crap software.
The Canon software was so bad, that it failed to install properly first go, refused to uninstall requiring manually hunting down and trashing all the bits, and when it did finally install, often refused to recognise the scanner meaning detaching and reattaching the USB cable, restarting OS X and failing that, manually removing the software and starting all over. Then the next time I went to use the scanner, this whole sorry process would usually be repeated. Just to do a “quick” 10 second scan would take half an hour. And forget about any other account on the computer accessing the scanner – this software was single user only.
The Mac software bundled with scanners is usually basic at best and often doesn’t include things like OCR and multi-page scanning support. However the bundled Windows software is always more extensive and capable and provides all the options you’d expect, even on the lowest of the low end scanners.
I have used VueScan Pro and highly recommend it. Great software at a reasonable price.
To paraphrase, there are obviously plenty of idiots willing to part with their loud-mouth opinions, when a reasoned, well thought out opinion is what was needed and wanted…
A little off topic, but for those of us without mechanical scanners or all-in-one units, I’ve found the iPhone app “Genius Scan” to be excellent.
It takes high resolution photos (scans) and automatically crops and color enhances as well. It’s especially useful for digitizing scads of celluloid family photos or large, unusually shaped photos or prints that would never fit into a standard scanner.
Like others, I have had VueScan Pro for many years. I will always have it since it handles (almost) all scanners. I am not married to a single scanner and can find my MBP having to use someone else’s scanner. VueScan will handle it.
Image Capture has been getting better. I hope it continues to improve. And I am one who really likes Silverfast. But it is foolish for me to have a computer that doesn’t have VueScan on it.
Those who don’t have it, what more do you need than massive positive recommendations from all those who use it? We all have options to VueScan. But VueScan remains on our Macs and continues to get use. For years and years.
Installing software is a simple task. If you can’t manage to do it you could waste some more money, but this time at the Genius bar. If you are not capable of using your computer then pack it up and send it back.
After repeatedly throwing more money at your poor purchase decisions you must be one of the most extravagant idiots you know….
@@Stuart, I don’t see where you’re getting this from. Stuart’s post did not seem to have called for your particular response. Further, he highly recommend VS and is clearly able to use it.
Ah. Preview. I use it mostly for PDF doc’s so why not go with the program u view them in.
Requires brother twain driver.
Would be nice if the Mac would see the scanner plugged in to timecapsule .
Usual amount of ignorance from MDN readers here. Decent scanning software does way more than Image Capture. Off the top of my head: support for infrared image cleaning, colour and fading restoration, adjustment of colour balance for film type, multi-pass scanning for noise reduction, high-quality image compression algorithms, support for batch scanning, automatic image location in frame, etc, etc, etc. Buying decent scanner software, like Vuescan, is just as important as the scanner you buy.
usually when you buy things they give you quality certificate and a CD with the drivers needed and software.go to their site..probably www. canon.com and search your purchased product and their drivers…..
Force Factor
I use an HP AIO 8500 which scans directly to a shared folder, no software needed. The scan types (PDF single and double sided and JPGs of different resolutions) can be programmed in via the 8500’s web page and then are selectable on the touchscreen. OCR requires processing by the computer of course. I realize this requires buying the 8500 or new 8500A but it’s fast and easy and I like it. I think the 8500A also supports AirPrint with a firmware upgrade. The AIOs are that cheap but with all the features included they are pretty good.
VueScan might be ok for home use, when you’re not scanning that much. It’s cheap works with almost and scanner, but requires a lot oft PhotoShop post processing.
SilverFast has to be recommend to professionals or the more ambitioned home user and for anyone having to scan a few hundred slides, photos or more. Being familiar with the SilverFast controls and settings you can easily produce high-quality scans that need no afterward image processing. Alternatively you can quickly scan 64bit raw data for saving any readable information and post process later using SilverFast HDR.
http://www.silverfast.com/