Oct 10, 2019 Question: Q: Scanner Problems with Catalina It appears I am not alone in having scanner problems after installing Catalina today. I have spent several hours trying this several things that I could think of but continue to get the message that 'Failed to open a session on the device.' Scan images or documents using your Mac. If you have a scanner or a printer with a scanner, you may not need any special software to scan an image. Before you scan, you need to open your scanner. Then, follow the instructions for either a document-feeding scanner or a flatbed scanner.
- Flatbed Scanner For Mac 10.14 Catalina
- Flatbed Photo Scanner For Mac
- Best Flatbed Scanners For Computers
![Scanner Scanner](/uploads/1/2/6/5/126561752/507471073.jpg)
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.
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.
Flatbed Scanner For Mac 10.14 Catalina
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.
Flatbed Photo Scanner For Mac
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.
Best Flatbed Scanners For Computers
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.
Our Score