Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

tramahound · Oct 10, 2002, 11:43 AM

i'm in the market for a sub-$100 flatbed scanner and would love if it worked in os x. we used to have an HP flatbed (don't know the model and don't really care because i don't plan on ever getting an HP again) that died a horrible and noisy death. so now i would like to get something that works with my mac and will last beyond its warranty. i did a few searches and found quite a few complaints about scanners not working in os x to this day and definitely want to stay away from those. we basically just need a scanner to get some old shots in our mac and maybe on our .mac site. so, obviously 4000dpi is not in our list of requirements. i would love to be able to scan our 35mm negatives directly, but apparently that is a $500 ordeal at least. i see epson has a $90 model that comes with a "35mm slide adapter" but isn't that for slide film only? i have an epson printer and have heard good things of their scanners as well, but just wanted to see what other mac users have to say about other manufacturers that i may never have heard about. so, what can you recommend?
Thanks ahead of time!

Jonesy · Oct 12, 2002, 03:36 AM

I have bought a more expensive Epson recently. The drivers work pretty well even though they are only beta. The slide adapter with mine allows you to use film strips and up to 4 mounted slides at once. You would need to scan from another appication such as Photoshop or Graphic Converter but it worked perfectly for me. I have read other reports on these forums about the drivers not working at all for people but maybe I have been lucky.

mediahound · Oct 12, 2002, 10:48 AM

i bought the Epson 2450 (not that cheap). and the beta Epson Twain driver for X seems to work totally fine for me. the scanner is fast, especially when connecting to my Mac via Firewire (got a 6 pin to 6 pin firewire cable off eBay for les than $10.

hsl · Oct 12, 2002, 02:28 PM

I've bought a epson 1260, and a it's really good one.
the beta TWAIN drivers from epson work in Photoshop and in Image Capture.
and I've bought it for �95 and that's about $90. you can also buy the photo version that has somekind of an extra device with which you can scan 35mm negatives and positives.

greetings HS-L

tramahound · Oct 12, 2002, 07:15 PM

oh, so the photo scanner part actually will scan all of my film negatives? that'd be great. i wasn't aware that the os x drivers were only betas either. that leaves some hope i guess. at least they made the effort to create betas in the first place. i guess i'll go for the epson. i'll have to check out that photo scanning adapter though. if it doesn't make much difference in scan quality i'd rather save the 20-30 bucks on it.
Thanks for the input. now to get this darned pc monitor off my desk and make some room for a new scanner!

tramahound · Oct 15, 2002, 01:27 PM

can anybody relate any pros and cons for lexmark products? my mother in law is using a lexmark x83 combination scanner/printer/copier and gets outstanding photo prints from it! it puts my dear epson 777 to shame! it states on lexmarks site that it runs in 10.1.5, but I'm curious how accurate that is...
Thanks