If you have a Mac and you want to buy a flatbed scanners you first need to make sure that it’s compatible as most scanners work with Windows but not all with OS X. We researched the Top Flatbed Scanners for Mac and any device running the Mac OS operating system
Here is our roundup of the Best Flatbed Scanners for Mac, based on specs, performance, value for money and customer ratings.
Here is our roundup of the Best Flatbed Scanners for Mac, based on specs, performance, value for money and customer ratings.
All important information about the Perfection V370 scanner of Epson and scanner software SilverFast Epson Perfection V370 - for better Scans, buy SilverFast Scanner Software To use all features of our website, it's recommended to enable javascript in your browser! Dec 06, 2017 Hamrick software's VueScan product supports the V600 scanner providing the Epson drivers are installed and functional. You might try VueScan as a test of the scanner drivers, though VueScan is ultimately a paid product. Perfection V600 Photo Home photo scanner Remove dust and scratches with this versatile, 6400 dpi scanner, featuring advanced DIGITAL ICE™ technologies for both film and photos. VueScan is compatible with the Epson Perfection V600 on Windows x86, Windows x64, Mac OS X and Linux. This scanner has an infrared lamp for scanning film. VueScan's 'Filter Infrared clean' option can be used to remove dust spots from film scans. This is similar to (and we think better than) the ICE and FARE algorithms.
Product | Format | Optical Resolution | Connectivity | Color Depth | Price |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Epson Perfection V600 | A4 | 6400 dpi | Hi-Speed USB 2.0 | 48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale | Click for more info |
Epson Perfection V39 | A4 | 4800 dpi | Hi-Speed USB 2.0 | 48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale | Click for more info |
Canon CanoScan Lide 400 | A4 | 4800 dpi | USB Type-C | 48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale | Click for more info |
Let’s have a look at each product in particular.
Product | Format | Optical Resolution | Connectivity | Color Depth | Price |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Epson Perfection V600 | A4 | 6400 dpi | Hi-Speed USB 2.0 | 48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale | Click for more info |
First, there is the quality. It has a CCD Sensor like Most Epson Scanners that can output digital images at an optical resolution of 6400 DPI. That is the kind of resolution you find on high-end scanners that cost 3-4 times as much. It is compatible with the latest version of Mac OS (OS X El Capitan, Sierra, Mojave and Catalina). When you scan in color, you’ll get a color depth of 48-bit and 16-bit for grayscale scanning. Obviously it has an LED lamp for scanning so that it doesn’t warm up. It can scan an A4 photo at 300 dpi in about 6 seconds which makes it a fast flatbed scanner.
You can scan film negatives with this photo and document scanner on your Mac. It comes with 2 film holders so that you can scan photos on 35mm film negatives and also 35mm slides. The scanning software that is bundled with the Epson is compatible with the holders, it will detect the frames, crop them and adjust the orientation. It also has some Digital ICE features to remove scratches and dust from them. Scratches and dust isn’t such a big problem on scanned photos but on film, you have to remember that the image will be enlarged so they become much more noticeable.
The software package in the box with the Epson Perfection v600 color photo image film scanner includes: Epson Easy Photo Fix, Epson Copy Utility, ArcSoft PhotoStudio, ABBYY FineReader Sprint Plus OCR. The Epson Easy Photo Fix gives you the option to do automatic photo enhancement with one click like auto crop and deskew, without fiddling through the settings and the ABBYY FineReader converts JPEG, Bitmaps and TIFF files to searchable PDFs or Word Documents. It has the best text recognition accuracy of all OCR software at the moment excluding Tesseract which is an API and does tend to perform better sometimes. The ArcSoft PhotoStudio is a great Photoshop knock-off but hey, it’s free.
This flatbed scanner for mac weighs about 9 pounds and it is 4.6 inches thick. Not the slimmest scanner by any means. It is a very fast flatbed scanner however if you need to digitize a lot of photos, then you should go for dedicated Mac compatible photo scanners like the Plustek ePhoto z300 or an Epson fastfoto FF-680W should be your pick. The only problem with flatbeds and with these photo scanners is that they cannot scan directly to SD card like most dedicated film and slide scanners.
Product | Format | Optical Resolution | Connectivity | Color Depth | Price |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Epson Perfection V39 | A4 | 4800 dpi | Hi-Speed USB 2.0 | 48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale | Click for more info |
The image resolution is 4800 DPI and this comes from a CIS sensor. From the CIS you can expect not as much RGB color vividness as you get on CCD sensors but the newer CIS sensors are so good that you have to look closely on your retina display to tell the difference. CIS sensors are built for document scanners and low-cost flatbeds where quality is less important. The pixel density is good enough for most applications. But even though it is enough for high-quality photo scanning, Epson have decided that this scanner won’t be able to scan film negatives, so you don’t get any film holders or software to help you with that. The sensor uses an LED lamp that doesn’t require any time to warm up.
Speaking of software, the included package contains: Epson Easy Photo Fix, Epson Event Manager, Epson Copy Utility, Epson Easy Photo Scan, Epson Document Capture Pro, ArcSoft Scan-n-Stitch Deluxe (Windows only). This time the OCR isn’t an ABBYY license so you will be using the OCR with the Document Capture Pro app which points to the idea of this scanner, that it was built to scan documents. This is a document scanner with scan-to-cloud, so you can sync this scanner through your Mac to automatically upload the scanned images to DropBox, Evernote or Google Drive. Epson provides TWAIN drivers so that you can use it with any scanning app for Mac or PC.
Product | Format | Optical Resolution | Connectivity | Color Depth | Price |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Canon CanoScan Lide 400 | A4 | 4800 dpi | USB Type-C | 48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale | Click for more info |
The included software with the Canon is: IJ Scan Utility (Windows), IJ Scan Utility Lite (Mac), Auto Scan, Document Scan, Photo Scan, Custom Scan, Stitch Scan, and OCR (Optical Character Recognition), ScanGear MP Driver, Quick Menu. Like with the Epson V39 you don’t get a separate ABBYY license, you have to use the Optical Character Recognition functions included with the Canon scanning software. All the software included is compatible with PC and Mac.
The Canon comes with a vertical stand so that it doesn’t take up space while you are not using it. It can also scan vertically but I wouldn’t recommend that. The scan speed is decent with an A4 at 300 dpi being digitized in just 8 seconds.
Epson Perfection V600 Scanner Drivers
If you want a high-quality scanner that you can use with your Mac and you don’t want to spend too much, then the V600 is the perfect option. If you want a good bargain, the V39 or Canon 400 are the best choices with their 4800 dpi optical resolution. The V39 is slimmer but the Canon 400 has a better data transfer rate with its USB-C port. Scanners like the Epson perfection v370 color photo scanner although compatible with Mac and PC devices, did not make our list because they are not produced anymore. Besides these photo scanners for mac, when you weigh on the decision to choose the right scanner you also have option of purchasing an HP Scanjet 2500 f1 which is compatible with mac and has a flatbed unit together with an automatic document feeder or buying a canon imageformula r40 and then a separate flatbed unit, same for the Epson Workforce models. Every big brand has an optional flatbed unit that you can buy. If you just want to scan photos, then the plustek photo scanner which can scan a 4×6 photo in 2sec and has auto crop and deskew with CCD sensor. If you decided that you want a portable scanner, then our recommendations are the fujitsu scansnap ix100 or the Epson DS-80W. Now a portable document scanner is not meant to be just a scanner for photos, more like receipt scanners for office documents but in most cases they can produce quality scans and have the advantage of wireless connectivity and sometimes an integrated preview LCD.
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Contents
This document covers the step-by-step process for scanning film strips and slides with the EPSON Prefection V750 PRO scanner, using the application EPSON Scan. The EPSON Scan software is the same on Macintosh and Windows, so these instructions work for both platforms.
Note: If you want to scan a document or image(s), see How to Scan Documents and Images with EPSON Scan or How to Scan Using the Fujitsu Scanners.
We recommend you use a film holder, which helps the scanning application detect the negatives or slides you’re scanning. You can check out a box of film holders at the circulation desk on the second floor of the Duderstadt Center.
Be sure you have a flash drive, external hard drive, or other means of taking your files with you when you leave.
Choosing a resolution for scanning negatives and slides is a little more complicated than choosing a resolution for a normal photograph. The best spotify drm removal software for the mac. Because negatives and slides are physically small, you need to scan them at a very high resolution so that they’ll be of good quality when you enlarge the images. This is important particularly if you’re planning to make prints of your images.
We recommend scanning negatives and slides at a resolution of 800-1200. Computer backup software for mac to usb drive. There is a more precise formula for specific print sizes:
width of negative in inches * scanning resolution in dpi = size in pixels
size in pixels / printing resolution (usually 150-300 dpi) = print size in inches
After the extraction, you will see that there are two files. Now, open AV Voice Changer Software Diamond (at least version 9.0). The process. Just ignore the text file and use.nvc file only. Once the zip file is downloaded, you should extract it. Voice changer software morgan freeman for mac.
For example, let’s say you’re scanning a slide that is 1.5 inches wide, and you choose to scan at 1000 dpi:
1.5 inches * 1000 dpi = 1500 pixels
If you take that image and print it at 150 dpi, you get a print of the following width:
1500 pixels / 150 dpi = 10 inches
As with documents and images, if you’re making a digital copy of your image for web use (like social media), you can scan on the lower end of that scale, around 800 dpi. If you intend to print your image, or if you need a high-quality archive of your negatives and slides, scan on the higher end, at 1000-1200 dpi.
Remember that the higher your resolution, the larger your file size is going to be. Depending on how and where you’re planning to store your digital images, this may also affect your decision.
Again, it depends what you’re going to do with them!
JPEG (or JPG) is a very popular and easily compatible file format. Most digital cameras save photos as JPEGs, and they’re the easiest format to share with others via email or social media. They are high quality, but not the absolute best. To keep file size down, a JPG is compressed, which will result in some loss of detail. If you are digitizing photos for a website or slideshow, this is probably what you want.
TIFFs are not as commonly used. They may not be recognized by all photo sharing sites, but will be usable by photo editing software. The file size is much larger because TIFFs are an uncompressed file format, meaning 100% of what you scanned is visible in the file. If you’re going to edit or print your photos, this may be the best choice.
- Lift the scanner cover and remove the white reflective backing from the scanner cover by sliding it out from its holders.
- Make sure the scanner bed is free of dust and smudges, which can show up on your scan. If it’s dirty, ask a consultant for cleaning supplies.
- Place your negatives or slides in the appropriate film holder.
There are guidelines on the film holders for properly orienting the negatives and slides, but even if you load the holder backwards, you can flip or rotate the images after you scan them. - Place the film holder onto the scanner so that the white arrows are aligned with one another. There are two pegs on the right-hand side of the film holder that will fit into two small holes on the scanner bed.35mm mounted slides in the slide holder, properly fitted in the scanner bed.
- Lower the scanner cover.
- Open up the application EPSON Scan. It’s the same on both Macintosh and Windows, so these instructions will work on either platform.
- Under “Mode,” at the top right of the window, select “Professional Mode.” This will give you expanded options for your scanning settings, which you can adjust depending on what you want to scan.
- Adjust the scan settings to your needs.
- Under the Document Type pulldown menu, select Film (with Film Holder) if your negatives or slides fit in one of the standard film holders.
Select Film (with Film Area Guide) if your film strips or slides are irregularly sized. Use the Film Area Guide provided in the container of film holders. (Please note that using the Film Area Guide can give less-than-reliable results, and is not recommended unless your negatives or slides won’t fit in any of the standard film holders.) - Under the Film Type pulldown menu, select the kind of film you’re scanning.
Choose Positive Film to scan positive negatives and slides (the kind that don’t have the colors all backwards).
Choose Color Negative Film to scan color negative negatives and slides.
Choose B&W Negative Film to scan black and white negatives and slides. - Under the Image Type pulldown menu, select 24-bit Color for a color scan, and 8-bit Grayscale if you would like to scan in black and white (choosing Black and White will scan only in black and white, with no spectrum of gray).
- Choose your resolution, which decides the quality of your scan. We recommend scanning negatives and slides at 800-1200 dpi – see above for more information on choosing a scanning resolution.
- Click Preview.
- After clicking Preview, EPSON scan will interpret your negatives and slides and show you thumbnails of your images.
- In the Preview window, you can click on a thumbnail and rotate your image or reverse it using the buttons under Frame on the left of the window. You can also uncheck the box below a thumbnail if you do not want to scan that image. All images are selected by default.
- Click Scan.
- In the File Save Settings window that opens, under Location, choose where you want to save your files (saving to the Desktop makes them easier to find). Under Image Format Type, choose howyou want to save your files (the benefits of JPEG vs. TIFF are discussed above).
- Click OK. All the images that were checked in the Preview window will be scanned and saved to the location you specified.
You now have high-quality digital images of your photos! Feel free to edit or rename any of your files – if you need help editing a picture with a program like Photoshop, ask one of our consultants. Remember to save and take your files with you by flash drive, external hard drive, self-addressed e-mail, or some other means. Don’t forget to retrieve your negatives or slides from the scanner, and please return the box of film holders to the circulation desk on the second floor!
This tutorial was written by GroundWorks Consultants Nora Stone and Stephen Ratkovich.