Expert: Scott Valentine - 3/20/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hi Scott - this is very kind of you.
I am trying to scan slides. I checked "transparency" and "positive film" and all
plugs. When I hit "preview' or "scan" the message is "scanner warming up"
and then after a while Photoshop goes red in the 'Force quit" window. I tried
it in Photoshop CS instead- same thing. I recently downloaded Twain plug-
ins. Are the two Photoshops conflicting or....? Gratefully, Charlotte

ANSWER: Hi Charlotte,

The issue you encountered is fairly common right now, because Photoshop no longer supports TWAIN interfaces directly in Mac. The three main options you have are:

*Download the optional plugins from Adobe to enable TWAIN support
*Use Adobe Acrobat to capture your scans as PDFs then open them in Photoshop
*Purchase a scanning application such as VueScan and use that to capture the scans

The first option is the quickest:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4047

However, there are reports that even this doesn't help. One forum post I found attempts to solve the issue, but since I no longer scan on my Mac, I haven't checked out the instructions. Check near the bottom of this page for the details:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=601929

If you have Acrobat, that may be an option, but realize your colors and resolution may not be what you expect when you scan to PDF then open in Photoshop.

My recommendation is to try the plugins, but if they don't work for you, consider purchasing a dedicated scanning application, especially if you will do a lot of scanning. I don't usually like to recommend that folks spend more money to regain functionality of an expensive application, but in this case it may be the most solid way to go.

I hope this helps - if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask!

-Scott

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Mac10.4.11 Hi Scott. I bought ScanVue and now I get the message "there is no
scanner connected to this computer"! On Ed Hamrick's scanvue site my
scanner, Epson Perfection 3170 Photo is listed as one of the scanners scanvue
works with but it is not in the drop down menu in the application itself. I hope
you can help me further. With many thanks, Charlotte

Answer
While I can't provide tech support on that specific application, I can give you a few things to try...

Try removing the device and rebooting your Mac. Launch the application so it goes looking for hardware (I think ScanVue works that way), then plug in the scanner, and close/relaunch the application.

For some odd reason, I've had to do this with both my Wacom tablet and another input controller now and then. In my case, it may be that my USB port is not handling the signal correctly, so you may need to check that out, too - unplug the hub if you are using one with your scanner, and plug it back in after a few seconds.

The other thing to try is to make sure other applications are not running that might interfere - Photoshop, Bridge, or other imaging applications may be gumming up the works. Quit those apps (not just minimize), and try ScanVue again.

Other than that, you're back to reinstalling the scanner application and/or ScanVue.

If all else fails, check with the folks you purchased from to see if they can help you trouble shoot.

Cheers =)

-Scott