TR Forums

I'm wondering about scanners and how they work with OSX. Namely does OSX have built in software to deal with it so that you don't have to use the usually horrible HP, or Epson, et al software. If it does I'd be curious to know how it integrates with the existing software on a mac, like photobooth*. Assuming apple does have built in scanner software, knowing about it's usability would be great (me mother wants to get a new computer (currently on a Rev. B iMac) and she's not the most computer literate person in the world...).




*it's been a long time since I've been on a mac.

Even on Windows you don't need to use the software supplied by the vendor except the base driver (though some vendors try to convince you that the "driver" includes several GB of software including editing suites and a bunch of other bloat, it's possible to just install the bare driver and nothing else). All modern scanners conform to standards like TWAIN, allowing you to scan from within the software of your choice (Photoshop, for example). And some of the vendors are actually including decent third party software instead of their own dreck, such as cut-down versions of Silverfast (in some cases, they even include the OSX version of Silverfast SE as well).