Best compact scanner--Canon Lide 30????

nofeer

Would like to get the canon, small, usb driven, however previous posts said there is a problem with this running under Mac X. I will have adobe elements. but if canon needs photoshop to scan pictures, if i were to send pictures via email, would the recipient have to have photoshop to view.

What do you recommend for compact easy to use scanner, something i can easily transport. Presently i have a AGFA scanner, but they don't make them anymore, maybe they have a MacX driver. does anyone have an agfa one touch style scanner?

eliahu

I have the LiDE 30 and Canon has proper drivers for the scanner. You don't need photoshop to scan, nor will recipients of your scans need photoshop to view them (assuming you save your scans in jpg gif pdf or some file format other than psd).



The LiDE 30 is incredibly small and very light with sexy plastics and it gets power from USB, which means less cable clutter. Bravo Canon!



However, the installer for the scanner drivers is horrible. It's a very confusing and lengthy process, requiring the installation of both the toolbox and drivers (each with a separate installer). Once installed, the scanning software interface is very poor. It's not unusable, just fugly and not very mac-like. Canon has plenty of room for improvement there. The scanner is also a bit slow. My first scanner was a Umax SE-6 SCSI scanner, which was hooked up to my 266 G3. That Umax scanner was WAY faster than the Canon LiDE 30 and it pre-dates the Canon by 5+ years.

jbl

I have a Canon U1240 which is the predecessor to the Lide 30. The drivers were a little flaky but I just gave up and got VueScan. It bothers me a little to spend $40 on a driver for a $100 scanner, but it is not like $140 is all that much and I don't really know that Canon has a lot of competition on these compact scanners.

mox358

I actually bought a Canon scanner (when OSX 10.1 came out) and the OSX support is horrible...they just finished drivers like two weeks ago. It DOES scan, but the interface is ugly as hell. The scanner also seems very tempermental.



I'm looking at an Epson for my next scanner purchase. They have quality OSX software that is frequently updated.



I'm not very happy with Canon's support, but some of the drivers are done now. If you just want a compact scanner (one cable, very thin) and you have Photoshop or PShop Elements (must for the drivers) then go for it.



Matt

eliahu

To be fair, JBL isn't even talking about the LiDE 30 and we have no idea what scanner mox is talking about.



My purchase of the Canon LiDE 30 is recent--about a month old. The drivers work perfectly. I have had NO PROBLEMS with flakyness or anything remotely close to that. I run OS X 10.2 on a GHz powerbook. I also used the scanner with a Sawtooth G4. Zero problems. You will NOT NEED Photoshop elements to scan.



My main complaint is the installer and the appearance of the interface. But functionality is perfect. Even the buttons on the scanner work and are custom configurable via the Canon Toolbox software.



Here is a screenshot of the Canon scanner software interface so you can see for yourself what it looks like:

buonrotto

I hate to poo-poo the scanner that I own, but another negative point about the Toolbox software you show above is the part about linking to an application at the bottom. The Toolbox application doesn't comprehend application bundles, so instead of just choosing an application icon (like iPhoto) to import the scanned image to, you have to find the actual executable inside the application's bundle:

hallutush-inshushinak

I recently bought an LiDE 30, and the OSX support is less than spectacular. The OSX installer didn't work quite right, and had to be helped along a bit.



But what bugs me most is that the OCR application (Omnipage SE) is still only Classic (yes, I know there's an X version of Omnipage, but that's not what Canon gives you). They do give you a lovely OSX scanner-control toolbar, but when you press the OCR button, it still launches a Classic app. Very klunky.

mediaman

[QUOTE]Originally posted by eliahu:

[qb]Here is a screenshot of the Canon scanner software interface so you can see for yourself what it looks like:



<cliped image>



Can there be any way to improve this interface, like maybe hacking the app with the interface builder from th Devtools? Expecially the 'toolbox' part.

Have these devs never used/seen a OSX app? That 'Toolbox' section would be better in a regular toolbar with the rest of the apps apearing in panes (I am thinking something like the System Prefrences).

E.g. Like this (Quick Photoshp Mockup)





[ 12-29-2002: Message edited by: Mediaman ]</p>

buonrotto

There is a lot of work to be done for it beyond its appearance. Its behaviors are broken too.



The funny (strange) part is that its plug-in driver, accessible through Photoshop or through the checkbox that says "Use scanner driver to make advanced settings," has a non-standard basic interface like the ToolBox, but its advanced mode is close to being fully Aqua compliant:









[ 12-29-2002: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>

shetline

[quote]Originally posted by mox358:

<strong>I'm looking at an Epson for my next scanner purchase. They have quality OSX software that is frequently updated.</strong><hr></blockquote>



Looking at Epson's web site, I don't see any OS X compatibility specified for anything but the professional scanners and the one most expensive model ($450) in the personal scanner line.



Is this quality OS X software you mention now available throughout the Epson line, and perhaps the Epson web site just hasn't been updated, or is your experience with Epson with the more expensive models?