The Fabulous Image Capture or The Scanner Software You Never Knew You Had

This one’s for Bill.

Let’s see what I mean:

So you say your brand new iMac which you scrimped and saved for is not playing nicely with that old, (until recently) reliable scanner. You say all you wanted was a new computer that was spiffy, responsive and would give you everything that the old computer couldn’t. How has it come to this?

So you were in the Apple store and you’re delirious. Everything is just so damned beautiful and it just works. Look at how it just works. So sleek. So responsive. Before you know it you’re “yeah-yeahing” a Stepford Wife in an Apple store polo shirt and flinging your credit card at them or signing a financing deal or prepping yourself to have a kidney removed.

“Honey, it’s only the price of a cup of coffee a day. Wait, was that the small or the grande? French roast or instant? Wait, how much is that coffee by the pound? Oh, never mind. Will you just look at the thing! Look at the bright screen! LOOK AT IT! Give it to me NOW!“

Then you wake up with that terror in the pit of your stomach. “Did I really marry that girl in that Vegas chapel?”

You look over.

By God, YOU did. You married it! But look how sleek and responsive. Best decision of your life. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Then comes the equivalent of your new wife’s mother coming to live with you. Your old peripherals aren’t cooperating with that new trophy Mac. Maybe it isn’t the Mac’s fault. Maybe it’s that new version of Photoshop that won’t play nice. Is there a newer driver? Maybe. Maybe not. With a certain dread, you start to justify heading over to Best Buy to see what they have in a scanner.

Hold your horses there, Bunky!

You don’t have to spend any more of your hard won dough. The Apple OS has something built in called Image Capture. It’s the scanner software you didn’t know was there. Truth be told, I’ve only recently discovered it myself. I’ve seen and ignored the little camera icon a million times. I always did my scanning through the plug-in in Photoshop. In my case, the Epson scanner window opens; I do my scan, and then the Epson window quits. Not the way to go if you want to do a lot of scanning. Image Capture may end up being my tool of choice.

It’s in your Applications folder! Take a look!

Image Capture

Below is what the application looks like once you open it, and it figures out what sort of capture device you have hooked up to it. When I heard about it, I thought it would be very bare bones and sort of crude, but as you can see below, it looks like it has everything you would need to make a decent scan. It will recognize whether you’re set up for transparencies or flat art. You drag a rectangle in the image area to select what you want to scan. You can set up the resolution or whether you want to scan color or grayscale. There’s a number of file saving and opening options. It’s a nice little package, and I’d like to thank Dan Love for pointing out what’s been under my nose all along.

Sorry, gang. This isn’t a tutorial. If you’ve scanned stuff in the past, all of this should be familiar. If you have not, play around with it. You won’t break anything. You’ll figure it out!

I did some playing around myself with it on these ancient program booklets that my lovely wife recently acquired. I was working on my G5 using OS 10.5 or Leopard. It recognized my Epson scanner quickly and the program was nicely responsive. I tried it on an older G5 using an older OS – Tiger – and it was a little pokey. Your mileage may vary.

I just did a straight scan without any automatic corrections. I do all of my adjustments in Photoshop.

I don’t know about you miserable members of the proletariat, but my retirement plans are all sewn up thanks to the lovely penmanship of the former Mrs. Goulet. When this hits the collector’s market, OH, BOY, I’ll be set for LIFE!!!