7 Replies Latest reply: Feb 17, 2010 3:59 PM by Tai Lao RSS

    OT: Scanner for production

    mhollis55 CommunityMVP

      Based on a series of conversations I had here and a well-timed receipt of Macworld Magazine, I decided to purchase an Epson V30 scanner, based on my needs.

       

      The V30's best feature is that it is an LED scanner and, as such, requires no warmup. With my old scanner, an Epson Perfection 3170, I'd get everything all set up and then would have to wait for a warmup cycle. The V30 is a flat, black scanner that opens sideways and, if you place it with the text right-side up and the four buttons facing you on your desk, will scan upside down. Thing is, that's the way I place paper into my printer to have it print, so that's not a big deal.

       

      Scans are accurate. There are no colors in grey objects scanned at any resolution in color. It does not do transparencies but I'm not expecting any in my business -- I tend to have more photographs and documents to scan than anything else.

       

      This scanner is on the slow side, but for $80 MSRP, one would expect that. It is large enough to scan just over an 8.5"x11" sheet of paper, so it is a little smaller than my previous scanner but the number of times I needed something larger I can count on the fingers of one hand. And I can always stitch materials together if I need a large scan.

       

      Both color and gray scale scanning are accurate and without any apparent artifacts. I suppose I could have paid more for something faster, but the Epson V30 suits well.

       

      To scan, I am using Photoshop once again, because the scanner's application is an Intel-Native or Universal Binary. I am using Photoshop CS3 and it works very well with the scanner software, which uses TWAIN to drive it. Please be advised that Adobe stopped allowing TWAIN plugins in Photoshop CS4 and one wonders if they will bring it back in CS5 (as it seems an error very similar to Microsoft ending support for VBA scripts in Excel and Word in Microsoft Office 2008 for Macintosh).

       

      I would rate this scanner an eight out of ten, grading it down slightly for slowness and for the fact that it cannot scan transparencies. This was a good buy for me and I am very happy with it.

       

      The scanner comes with software to install on your Mac or a PC running Windows, a power cord (with a "brick") and an USB2 cable, instructions in several languages and a quick start guide.

       

      -Mark Hollis

        • 1. Re: OT: Scanner for production
          Chris Cox Adobe Employee

          TWAIN is not coming back.


          It's still a huge source of crashes due to bad drivers (even AFTER we made it optional).

          • 2. Re: OT: Scanner for production
            Jod55

            I have a Epson V500 and a mac and I don't really know what I am doing...

            How do you use photoshop with the scanner as you described?

            • 3. Re: OT: Scanner for production
              mhollis55 CommunityMVP

              That depends.

               

              Most scanners come with applications that may be activated as a plugin by other software using the TWAIN API. TWAIN, interestingly enough, stands for "Technology Without an Interesting Name" and it is an API designed to standardize communication between scanning hardware and software. Back in the 1990s there was no standardization of the physical interface between scanners and computers and no standardization of the software. Scanners used everything from parallel ports to SCSI ports to serial ports to proprietary interface cards. Today, most scanners use USB2 and applications that use the TWAIN API.

               

              Adobe's Photoshop CS3 will work with TWAIN scanners. Pull down File>Import and, if you see your scanner in the menu, you can activate your scanner application from within Photoshop. If you installed your scanner application after you installed Photoshop CS3, it will be there. If it is not, you may need to reinstall your scanner application. The result will be a new image created in Photoshop from your scanning application. Instead of needing two steps to scan then import images into Photoshop, the process is a one-step one and quite handy.

               

              Here is one caveat: Photoshop and other applications that are Universal Binary applications (and run natively on Intel Processors) cannot activate an application that requires Rosetta, so if your scanner application was written for the Power PC chip (you can use "Get Info" to see if it was), you will not be able to scan from within Photoshop. I discovered that this was a problem when I upgraded my computer from a G4 system to a Mac Pro with an Intel processor.

               

              With CS4, Adobe has improved and simplified things. Despite being part of the TWAIN Working Group, Adobe has taken out support for TWAIN in Photoshop CS4. This makes scanning easier for Adobe customers because they now have a two-step process to scan images for editing in Photoshop. Adobe is claiming that TWAIN causes Adobe applications to crash, so despite being a very important part of the TWAIN Working Group and despite being Adobe and capable of writing software to make things easier for people using their applications, they have decided to not support TWAIN in Photoshop CS4 and, from what has been mentioned here, CS5. So we can all look forward to not being able to scan from within Photoshop in the future.

              • 4. Re: OT: Scanner for production
                Community Member

                "Support" for TWAIN in CS4 is the same as it was in CS3 and earlier versions.  What has changed is that Adobe now provides the TWAIN plug-in as an optional plug-in for CS4 rather than as part of the default installation.

                 

                Scanning from inside Photoshop was never a good use of resources for at least two different reasons:  (1) Stand-alone scanning applications like SiverFast and VueScan are immensely more powerful and versatile than any plug-in, and (2) scanning by means of a plug-in means you're tying up a very expensive application, Photoshop, while you scan.

                 

                Let me repeat:  the TWAIN plug-in for CS4 is there and it's provided by Adobe from the get go.  By forcing you to install that optional plug-in separately, Adobe is just reminding you that a lot of TWAIN drivers are unreliable and that many of them will cause Photoshop to crash.

                 

                Look at the Goodies folder > Optional plug-ins > Import-Export > TWAIN.plug.in, or download from here:

                http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4047

                 

                 

                 

                Wo Tai Lao Le

                 

                太老了

                 

                 

                EDIT:  fixed link.

                • 5. Re: OT: Scanner for production
                  mhollis55 CommunityMVP

                  And if you read Chris's reply to my review of the scanner, you will see that Adobe is not interested in supporting TWAIN scanners in the future.

                  • 6. Re: OT: Scanner for production
                    Wade_Zimmerman Community Member

                    The problem is that when the scanners are used with twain it creates a memory leak and for many users this causes Photoshop to crash I use to use it and had only a few problems but since 10.4 it has been pretty bad and I strongly suggest you use the standalone application that comes with the scanner save the file in the format you want and to the location you want and then simply open that fie in Photoshop.

                     

                    You will in the en save more time. Often the only way to clear the cache problems twain is causing especially with Epson drivers and Photoshop is not only to quite Photoshop and the drivers but also reboot the computer and the scanner. The stand alone will seldom do this though somewhere along the line it is expected.

                     

                    Make life easier use the stand alone.

                    • 7. Re: OT: Scanner for production
                      Community Member

                      mhollis55 wrote:

                       

                      …you will see that Adobe is not interested in supporting TWAIN scanners in the future.

                       

                      And I don't blame them. 

                       

                      As of today, Adobe does offer optional support for TWAIN in CS4 and earlier versions, yet third party developers deliver poorly written drivers.  What's the point of continuing to go down that route?

                       

                      As I and many others have pointed out, scanning from within Photoshop is just not a bright idea.

                       

                      My original point was to correct the false information that one needs to copy the plug-in from CS3, when in fact Adobe delivers it for CS4.

                       

                      Wo Tai Lao Le

                       

                      我太老了