Why doesn't Photoshop see my scanner or the plugin? (Mac OS)

[Lou Dina]

Just loaded CS4 on Mac 10.5.7.  I downloaded and installed the  latest OSX Epson 1240U scanner software, and also copied the Twain plugin from the Adobe Goodies CD to the Photoshop > Plugins > Import/Export folder.  Rebooted the computer, power off and unplugged my USB scanner, fired it back up, restarted Photoshop, etc.   The scanner software works fine in stand-alone mode.

But Photoshop doesn't see my scanner at all.  In fact, the TWAIN plugin doesn't even show up in the plugins folder list.

Whaz goin' on?  How do I fix this?

Thanks, Lou

[Chris Cox]

Because CS4 moved the TWAIN plugin to optional plugins -- too many buggy scanner drivers were causing Photoshop to crash, and Adobe has no control over those buggy scanner drivers.

[Chris Cox]

Also, that's an ANCIENT scanner (I know, I have one right here :-).

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Chris Cox wrote:

Also, that's an ANCIENT scanner (I know, I have one right here :-).

Chris makes a very good point.   The driver for that scanner was probably never updated for Universal Binary.  If that's the case, there's no way that it will run from within Photoshop on your brand new Mac-Intel machine.

[Lou Dina]

Chris/Ramon:

Thanks for your answers. Like I said, the scanner software seems to work fine in stand-alone mode.  I'm just used to importing scanned images directly from within PS.

To install the Twain plugin, I just dragged it from the Adobe Goodies DVD directly to the Photoshop > Plugins > Import Export folder (which is what it said to do in the Adobe Readme file).  Just seemed strange to me that it wouldn't show up in the Photoshop Plugin list at all, just like it isn't there.  I restarted PS and it still doesn't show up.

Hey, if it won't work from within Photoshop, it won't work.  Just seems odd that PS doesn't even SEE the plugin.

Chris, would you recommend NOT using it from within Photoshop?

Thanks,

Lou

[Guest]

Lou Dina wrote:

Chris/Ramon:

Thanks for your answers. Like I said, the scanner software seems to work fine in stand-alone mode.  I'm just used to importing scanned images directly from within PS.

That's because its running in Rosetta. If you just start up Photoshop CS4 its going to run natively with the Intel chips. the plugin written for the PowerPC chip is ignored as it does not work. You could fire up Photoshop in rosetta then it would probably work although that would defeat the whole purpose of a new faster computer.

Do what most all of us do. Scan as a stand alone.

It seems silly to tie up $1000 application to run a scanner you can buy for $20 on ebay.

[Lou Dina]

Thanks Buko.

I'm new to a Mac and OSX.  Just moved over from a PC.  I'll just scan outside of Photoshop and be done with it.

Thanks for the help, folks!!

Lou

[Guest]

Welcome to Mac. I hope you enjoy.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Hi Lou,

Just to expand on Buko's explanation, CS4 runs natively on your Mac-Intel, but the plug-in has to run in Rosetta software emulation,  Rosetta in effect mimics the presence of a PowerPC chip (pre-Intel) in your new machine.  Since Photoshop is running natively in the Mac-Intel environment of your computer and the scanner driver has to run in the Rosetta emulation environment, the two cannot see each other or talk to each other.

When you launch the scanner's software by itself, it runs in Rosetta emulation and does not have to worry about communicating with Photoshop.

Of course, Rosetta emulation brings with it a MASSIVE performance hit, as Buko implies.

[Lou Dina]

Thanks, Ramon.

That was very helpful and clear, and makes a lot of sense.  Now I have a clue what Rosetta  does and why it exists at all. It's a bit of a learning curve moving to OSX after 25+ years on a PC.

I have removed the Twain plugin from Photoshop and will just scan in stand-along mode when required.

Regards,

Lou

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Lou,

You have always been a rock of stability and an inexhaustible source of good information and sound advice in the Color Management forum.  Now that you've moved to the Mac, we're delighted to have you here too.  I'm sure there will be plenty of us eager to help you here, if we can.

[eaglegs]

Hope you can still help with this question.  Have a 2 year old Intel IMac. I have both CS3 and CS4 installed. My Epson scanner is only 2 years old and works fine from within CS3 Photoshop. I just installed the CS4 and now I have no scanner inside Photoshop. Downloaded the Epson driver for OS 10.6 and CS3 Photoshop works fine just like always. Isn't CS3 native for the Intel Mac. I scan directly in Photoshop to save time and may scan 3 or 4 photos at one time. If I have to scan outside Photoshop then open in Photoshop I am wasting time. Guess I will try Rosetta if I can  figure it out.

[Guest]

by default the TWAIN.plugin is not installed in CS4

BTW you really need to learn how to scan without using Photoshop.

[Aspen_Studio]

I love using my scanner with photoshop CS4. My Epson software can not scan multiple pictures at one time auto crop and straighten them at the same time. One scan using the photoshop it will automatic crop and straighten photos. I can scan 12 or more wallets and with one scan and it will crop straighten and create its own file. Thats the difference between a 20 dollar program and a 1000 dollar program. Time is money and if you want to do 20 scan for 20 wallets it is up to you, I would rather scan once and be done with it.

[Chris Cox]

Photoshop doesn't scan.  Photoshop itself has no scanning interface, and knows nothing about how to talk to a scanner.

Photoshop indirectly calls the scanner drivers installed by your scanner manufacturer through a standard interface known as TWAIN.

Unfortunately, the drivers have increasingly been crashing due to bugs in the drivers -- causing a lot of headaches for Photoshop users and developers.

So, rather than suffer crashes, we moved the TWAIN plugin to an optional install.

The scanning program that comes with your scanner is the same software that Photoshop was calling through the driver.

If you need better scanning software, talk to your scanner maker.

[Aspen_Studio]

The scanner works great for me using a G5 mac and CS4. as stated in your e-mail to me there is a optional install to do this. So photoshop does have software out there for scanning. Some users may have issues but I am not.

James Garber

aspen studio

1913 S. Washington St.

Grand Forks, ND 58201

Daily Website: www.AspenStudioBlog.com

Website: www.AspenPhotoStudio.com

Email: aspenphotostudio@yahoo.com

Phone: 701-330-9572

[Guest]

Aspen Studio wrote:

So photoshop does have software out there for scanning.

Not really, the scanning itself is not done by Photoshop.

[dajelle]

I couldn't agree more! If you have to make a lot of scans from your own designs, it is much easier to do that in the PS program, and I am so frustrated that it does not work on the CS5

Have you found a solution already?

[Lou Dina]

The solution is the use your stand-alone scanner software to scan, save the resulting TIFF files on your hard drive, then open them in Photoshop. Works fine, and it avoids potential plug-in issues in Photoshop. The older versions of Photoshop allowed you to install and launch the scanner software as a plugin, but apparently Adobe removed that capability due to too many problems with 3rd party scanner software.

[Chris Cox]

As explained several times already: the TWAIN plugin was made optional, because so many buggy scanner drivers were causing crashes and customers had a difficult time figuring out the cause of the crashes and solving them.

The capability is still there: you only need to install the optional TWAIN plugin.  But in doing that you risk making Photoshop less stable because of bugs in scanner driver software.

Again, it is much safer to scan outside of Photoshop, then open the images in Photoshop for editing.

[filmgraphics]

Hokay....jumping forward another 5 months, here am I, having actually grasped the point that what seems intrinsic to Photoshop from a workflow perspective is not part and parcel from a software position.

I too like Silverfast because of its serial scan options and its advanced descreening modes. I AM entirely willing to perform scanning externally to the PS (CS4) app, but on my MacPro running OS X 10.6.8, I still get the scanner not found error.

PS running or not running, restart or not, reinstall SF or not, Rosetta or not, cables checked/replaced, and all the while System Profiler sees the firewire interface and my Epson 1040XL at the end of it. Also, the Epson-created scan app (which I believe only works in PS, of course, simply crashes PS.) What do you gurus recommend in this case?

All of this occurred since moving to Intel architecture. This same scanner worked perfectly in PS and standalone mode with PowerMac hardware. As of now I cannot scan at all!

Thanks!  -- Ted Haigh

[Guest]

Hi Chris,

The way i see it is, when i was in college i used Photoshop 6.if i did want a scan i would:-

Go to file down, to twain, did what you needed to do in the scan wndow, it would then close and open the picture in Photoshop,

you felt you were always in photoshop.

Now with the later versions from what i read ( ive only used Photoshop 6 so i dont know the rest), If you wanted a scan you would leave photoshop, open your scanner software, did your bits in that, save it to desktop or whatever, go back to Photoshop, go to file, open, find the picture then open it in photoshop. 

To me, It feels like your trying to get from the bottom of the country to the top by using side roads and not the motorways even if you do get from a to b.

I know what your trying to say.They did this to make it more stable. You dont want to be working on something and it crashes because you want to scan.

So i can see both sides to the debate.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Lou,

First of all, you install the TWAIN plug-in at your own risk in CS4.  It was intentionally left out of the default CS4 installation for a good reason, namely that many scanner drivers will give you grief.

In addition, it's more efficient to scan outside of Photoshop instead of tying up an expensive application to call upon the scanner's software anyway.

Beyond that, there should be no problem if you installed the scanner driver correctly.  Exactly how did you do it?

Another thing is to respect the default Photoshop installation meticulously.  Do not move the Photoshop icon or the Photoshop folder, do not create subfolders for them, etc.

[bushypenny12]

HI folks: I am but ANOTHER
User of Photoshop CS4....Just installed it on my Mac Pro;

I have an EPSON GT20000 Scanner; IT USED TO WORK THROUGH PHOTOSHOP
CS2...Now in CS4 it DOES NOT WORK!!!!   They removed the active "PLUG_IN you need;

I've tried..like 25 times- to OPEN the plug-in...from GOODIES disc..did Everything under the sun

it does not and WILL NOT WORK through Photoshop CS4. it is useless. I can't believe they

did=away with Scanning through Photoshop now; I used to go "FILE-IMPORT> Twain,

or GT20000   it was SO SO convenient.  I'v tried calling ADOBE 800PHone no# and I was on hold

for 1 hour 20 minutes and just gave up. NOTHING will work and I hate this so much;

Photoshop is DIRECTLY related to scanning and for them to messs this up is tragic.

Sorry-in NYC.

[Chris Cox]

Photoshop is not directly related to scanning.  Photoshop is related to images, and scanning is just one way of getting images into the computer.

Your scanner driver software is much more closely related to scanning.

You can scan using the software that came with your scanner by itself, or you can install the optional TWAIN plugin and hope that your scanner driver doesn't crash Photoshop.