Reliable scanner vendor

I've given up hope of finding any good scanner drivers for OS X. I
use VueScan, which doesn't require any drivers - it just works. I'm
still using my old Canon N650U and it works great.

Try VueScan <http://www.hamrick.com/>. It provides a general-purpose
scanner driver for Mac OS X. I needed to use it in the early days of
Mac OS X, before Canon developed a driver for my N1220U scanner.

$49.95 for software to restore capability is annoying, but cheaper
than a new scanner.

I installed Tiger two weeks ago. I have an Epson Perfection 2450 Photo scanner. I have had no problem with scanning from Tiger. I didn't have any problems and I didn't have to update any drivers for it.

Maybe your problem is with some other software or your scanner is just to old that no one would write new drivers for it.

I also have several printers, laser and ink jet. They worked just fine with no updates to the drivers.

Marty

Scanner vendors seem to think it's a good idea to not update their drivers.
Maybe they think customers will then buy a new scanner every year.

FWIW, I advise my customers to only buy a scanner that's supported by
VueScan. I never like the software that you get with scanners anyway, and
VueScan not only works well (has both a 'simple' mode and a 'pro' mode) and
supports load of scanners, including 'old' ones. It sometimes even makes a
scanner's features available that the vendor's own software does not.

--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

I have also had problems with apps on Tiger (just bought a new G5 with Tiger
pre-installed). The Epson driver for my Stylus C61 printer provided by Apple
is the lite version of the driver provided by Epson itself, and it does not
contain the Utility function. However, downloading the Epson driver did not
work since, for some reason, the Utility feature was missing in action. I
need that Utility to monitor the ink levels and also to clean the print
heads.

Epson promises me that they will look into the matter and get back to me.

Paul

>From: Mike Cohen <tidbitsmcdevzone.com>
>I've given up hope of finding any good scanner drivers for OS X. I
>use VueScan, which doesn't require any drivers - it just works. I'm
>still using my old Canon N650U and it works great.

I managed to download a driver for my very old Canon N1220U scanner, and it
seems to be working with Tiger on my G5.

The problem I had with the Epson printer Utility seems to have been solved
after I applied the software patch for Tiger. Apple must havae been aware of
that problem and provided a fix. There are still a few thing I have to
figure out with the new printer system though. The dialog boxes are
different, but not better, alas.

Paul

I wonder if any of these people reporting scanner problems upgraded
Photoshop to CS2 about the same time as going to Tiger ? I've begun
having problems with my trusty Canoscan under the same old OS
(Panther) after I moved to CS2.

Christopher Appell
European Market
FreeRecruiting.com

I bought a HP scan jet 3970 and have had no trouble using it with
10.3.8. I have not used it yet with 10.3.9. I use it for copying and
it works well. I scan with no problem and then hand the result off
to Graphic Converter 5.5.2. I have not found a way yet to use a plug
in to allow GC to work with the HP driver. HP driver provides plug in
for most other graphics programs. the printer I am using the Scan
jet 832C. Its driver (2.5) is inferior to the OS 9 driver so when I
want to print two sided I use classic. HP has been promising to get
their printer driver up speed for X for a year and simply apologize
for their inaction any time I mention it.

I don't think I will move to Tiger until someone I learn there is a
reliable HP printer driver for both my printer and Scanner.

Cheers

--
Robert A. (Bob) Hall
rahallptd.net

I'm using an old Epson Scanner (Expressions 800) that the driver
stopped working on Panther. None of the companies seem update there
drivers to a new OS. I switched to xsane using the x11.app a couple
of years ago. While drivers come and go, xsane seems to continue for
a lot of scanners. (I used fink, but darwinports could also be helpful.)

..lj

I'm using an old Epson Scanner (Expressions 800) that the driver stopped working on Panther. None of the companies seem update there drivers to a new OS.

I know I got my mother-in-law's ancient (pre- Mac OS X) Epson Perfection 1200U scanner to run under Panther with a driver downloaded from Epson's web site last year. Sometimes you have to poke around their site to find an updater for a newer model that includes support for an older model.

After an initial dearth of Mac OS X drivers, I've been impressed with Epson's willingness to add Mac OS X drivers for many (but not all) pre- Mac OS X devices--and at no cost to the consumer! (When is Apple going to give us QuickTake 100 users a Mac OS X QuickTime codec? ;-)

I recommend reading VersionTracker user comments on any device that needs a driver upgrade. I recall that some magic was required to get my Epson scanners working again after both the Puma=>Jaguar and Jaguar=>Panther upgrades (deleting one or two Image Capture scanner profiles, IIRC). FWIW, make sure you have only one user logged in before using an Epson scanner when multiple users are enabled in Panther.

I was pretty impressed that Tiger's Image Capture recognized my Epson Perfection 3200 Photo scanner "out of the box" without having to install any software from Epson. And the front button worked--for the first time ever! (Disclaimer: I haven't worked extensively with Tiger yet.)

--Christopher

"Christopher Schmidt" <christopherschmidtzone.com> wrote:

>>>After an initial dearth of Mac OS X drivers, I've been impressed with
>>>Epson's willingness to add Mac OS X drivers for many (but not all) pre-
>>>Mac OS X devices--and at no cost to the consumer! (When is Apple going to
>>>give us QuickTake 100 users a Mac OS X QuickTime codec? ;-) <<<

Full marks to Epson for its support... at least in Sydney, Oz. I was having
problems getting the Utility function of an old Stylus C61 printer onto my
Tiger G5. Apple provides a stripped down version of the driver which does
not have the Utility and Tiger kept blocking all my attempts to get rid of
it and to install the proper driver.

The Nice Man from Epson guided me through the installation process on the
phone. He had obviously come across this problem many times before.

Paul

PS Hey! And I didn't have to wait for hours on the phone waiting to be
connected to a technician! Amazing!

Any news of a driver, Vuescan or other, for an H-P Scanjet 3570c?

All suggestions gratefuly received,

Mike