Flatbed scanner for Mac OSX?

June 17, 2009 10:37 AM

What's a good flatbed scanner for Mac OSX? Something other an Epson Perfection - mine is now dead after only a couple of years due to buggy driver software and/or hardware - tech support was unable to diagnose.

I've already read the recent Which document scanner to buy? but it's Windows-focused and more for a quick doc scanner, not a flatbed that can do photos and the occasional doc.

I also read this piece from 2007 on good Mac scanners, but everyone is saying "Epson" and, as stated before, I'd like to avoid more buggy hardware and software from them.

Any suggestions much appreciated.

posted by mark7570 to computers & internet (11 comments total)

I have a cheap Canon Lide 70 that works well enough the twice a month I scan a photo or magazine page. OS X, though I have also used it from Windows a few times.

I don't use their software, just the TWAIN Acquire plugin inside Photoshop.
posted by rokusan at 10:50 AM on June 17

I use an older Epson (Perfection 1260) but I use Vuescan on OSX to control it and have had very good luck. If you think a software bug might be causing problems for your current scanner, it might be worthwhile to try Vuescan and see whether it fixes whatever's wrong.
posted by immlass at 10:57 AM on June 17

There's not a huge amount of difference between any of them, unfortunately. Low end scanners are commodity items, so they aren't terribly well supported. They have lots of moving parts and cost less then $200, that's not a formula for a low failure rate.
My advice would be to go to the companies web sites and look at the drivers, if the drivers were released 2-3 years ago and haven't been updated, don't buy it. Be wary of scanners that claim to support both PPC and Intel but only have one driver. A lot of these were depending on Rosetta to run under Intel and that's no longer available in 10.5.
posted by doctor_negative at 11:05 AM on June 17

I use a Canon LiDE 600F and I'm pretty satisfied with it. I second rokusan about not using the Canon software. Sucks that it's a TWAIN scanner, but I get by. The nice thing is that the scanner is USB-powered, so no extra power brick to plug-in.

One caveat...I've noticed a bit of bugginess with Apple's TWAINbridge.app (which allows use of TWAIN devices with ImageCapture, etc.) It will sometimes become over-active and cause a system slowdown and a very choppy mouse cursor. You're probably running a newer OS than I am, so, hopefully, this isn't a problem anymore. My fix, though, is to simply unplug the USB cord on the scanner.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:34 AM on June 17

I was recently printer shopping, and along the way I saw a lot of commentary about all-in-one printers being cheaper than scanners for equivalent scanner capability. This would (presumably) be due to the subsidizing of printer hardware by toner sales. Caveat: I haven't looked into this myself (pricing, quality of scanner/software on the printers, etc).
posted by madmethods at 11:37 AM on June 17

I have a Canon LiDE (70 I think) that I use a few times a year and it seems fine. It's USB only, has no power brick, works on Windows and Mac, and has OK quality. I can't vouch for it's reliability though.
posted by chairface at 11:46 AM on June 17

I've had a couple Canon LIDEs and a couple Epson Perfections and the Epson is a much better machine for precision work but the Canon is sure nice for everyday document work.

Microtek and UMax are also still building scanners but I don't know much about them.

Of course, there's always the Creo Eversmart series...
posted by bz at 12:19 PM on June 17

Epson Perfection 1250 here. OS X Leopard. I use Image Capture and it works fine. I bought it refurbished back in 2002 and have never had a problem.
posted by 2oh1 at 1:24 PM on June 17

We got mom a Brother MFC for Christmas, and it worked so well that I bought one for myself. It's handy to just be able to drop a piece of paper in the document feeder and press Copy, without interrupting the computer use.
posted by Steve3 at 1:36 PM on June 17

I've used Epson and Canon scanners on both OSX and Windows; generally speaking, I prefer Epson scanners (and Canon printers, fwiw) for their ease of use and reliability. Currently I scan with either a Epson V750 or a Fuji ScanSnap S300M; they've both been problem free on Tiger and Leopard. I also used an Epson 4990 a few years back, but only had problems using it with Silverfast software.

If you don't mind my asking, what were the problems you were having and how did you figure your scanner was dead?
posted by LuckySeven~ at 5:50 PM on June 17

I've got a CanoScan 8400F which worked perfectly until a recent OSX update, and now refuses to do anything. Canon seem disappointingly uninterested in getting a fix out any time soon... so caveat emptor.
Apparently I could go out and buy different scanning software to replace the Canon stuff, but that seems a bit excessive and unnecessary (particularly considering the low usage).
I'd definitely think twice before buying another Canon computer peripheral, anyway - who knows when it may stop being supported?
posted by Chunder at 3:02 PM on June 18