MacMost Now 672: Using Image Capture With Scanners

The Image Capture app that comes with every Mac is a good alternative to scanner manufacturers' custom software. You can use it to scan images from most scanners and it will adjust its features depending on the scanner's capabilities.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary, with MacMost Now. Today's episode, let's look at using Image Capture to access your scanner.
So often, when you buy an image scanner, you sometimes get a CD or DVD with software on it, or something you are supposed to download, to use to scan the images. Sometimes the software is good, sometimes it's not. But there is an alternative. Every Mac comes with the utility, called Image Capture. This could be used for variety of purposes, including photos off of your iPhone or iPad or digital cameras. But it can also be used to access the scanner. And after you've installed drivers for the scanner, often the Image Capture software is just as good as using the stuff you get from the manufacturer. So let's take a look at it.
So here I've launched Image Capture and right away it has noticed that there is a shared scanner on my network. It's a wireless printer/scanner and I can see it right here and select it. And I can choose at the bottom, scan size, where to save scan to, if I want to open it up in preview, so I can see it. I can click on show details and it will bring up all of the stuff that you might be used of seeing when you scan something in. So you can set the resolution and all sorts of other things, file format and it's warming up scanner now, you can hear it in the background. You can see it is going to do a preview scan of what's in the scanner bat right now. And it's actually going to try to figure out where the different portions of the image are. So this was several photos, it may have actually figured it out what the separate items are. I can turn this off. Now, a lot of this stuff depends on the capabilities of the scanner and also the drivers for the scanner. So it may change, depending on which one you've got. Which is good, meaning that it will use the capabilities of whatever scanner you have. And then you can go and do the scan and going to choose my own area here, have it saved to the desktop, sets name, the format and...So now that it's done I get the list of scan results, kind of like downloads folder. The file is actually here on my desktop as a .jpeg and I can open it and use it in whatever program that I want. And I can also change all these other things here, for better scans. Now I find it that I actually end up using Image Capture more often than the manufacturer software, just because once you know it, you can use it, doesn't matter which scanner you're using and I often find out that I get better results using it. So if you are using the image scanner and you are using the manufacturer software, maybe you should try giving image capture a go and see if that works better for you. And if you just get a new scanner, maybe try going right to Image Capture and using that to capture your images, rather than trying to install or update the software, found from the manufacturer. Until the next time, this is Gary with MacMost Now.
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Comments: 15 Responses to “MacMost Now 672: Using Image Capture With Scanners”

Emily Grae

13 years ago

Cool! You always have such useful tips! Thanks a lot!

Antrim

Great. I knew about this but forgot how useful it was. Thanks for reminding us of this useful utility.

ApexRon

I use a wireless multifunction printer with scanner. Image Capture does not see my Canon MX882 at all. So I am forced to use the Canon software.

Rob

Thanks Gary, works great on my HP photosmart. This Aussie really appreciates all your great videos.

Bill

PeopLe jusT don'T aPPreciaTe aLL theiR MAC caN do.....
ThanKs Gary,,,, YoU aRe the BesT!!!!!!
{ i LOvE mY MAC }

Donald churchill

He will bury our you doing a fantastic job been watching a lot of your videos but I was wondering are you ever going to get into lion server software setup it would be helpful just was wondering DHCP and DNS setup and users and groups would be awesome

Gary Rosenzweig

No, sorry, I don't envision getting into Lion Server tutorials.

Martyn

A great help. My scanner program decided to not play ball recently and I had a trouble getting just one scan. Now I find out Image Capture could have done the job. Yay! Thanks Gary, regularly watch your podcasts, a real useful tool for us Mac users.

FoolishCop

I just did this last night. For some reason I couldn't locate my printer driver and decided to just use Image Capture. It was so much easier than go through all the dialogs that used to come up with my HP software. Thanks for another great tip (though I found this one indepdently! :) ).

Rich

Arnold Karpoff

I have an Epson V30 attached via USB. When I boot image capture it does not see the scanner. I do not see any obvious way to link the two. Any suggestions?

Check the manufacturer's site for any updated drivers you might need to install.

Sqaufdonoboles

Image Capture does not see my HP All-In-One Scanner. How can I select it?

Perhaps you need to install new drivers. Or perhaps it only works with the HP software.

Larry Chapman

This is the most amazing thing I've learned in the last four years, since switching to Mac. I have an older HP all-in-one wireless printer that would not scan to computer wirelessly. I have been using HP Web scan. After watching your video, I launched Image Capture and low and behold, it functioned exactly as demonstrated. How does it connect to my scanner, Mac magic?

Thanks!!!

Ursula Molter

12 years ago

I have a HP M2727 nf all in one laserjet printer.
I recently (2 months ago) updated to Mountain Lion. In Image Capture the printer does not show. (VueScan - trial version sees the scanner perfectly). I did uninstall the old drivers, and re-install the printer (ptinter works fine).
Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Comments Closed.

MacMost Now 672: Using Image Capture With Scanners

Comments: 15 Responses to “MacMost Now 672: Using Image Capture With Scanners”

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