Tech: Using Epson scanner with iMac

Subject: Tech: Using Epson scanner with iMac
From: SueB
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 04:30 PM

Maybe some one can help. My friend has an iMac, and I'm trying to help her figure out how to use her Epson scanner to make copies. She turns on scanner, turns on iMac, opens Appleworks, opens Epson TWAIN program, clicks on Acquire, clicks on the SCAN button and it starts doing its thing - but always ends up saying it has a memory problem. We tried changing the copy size, the target size, the copy quality, no dice. Yes, I know, RTFMS, but we can't find the solution in the book. Any ideas?

Subject: RE: Tech: Using Epson scanner with iMac
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 04:43 PM

IF you're running OS 9 you can increase the amount of memory allocated to the individual program (the Epson scanning program, I expect) via the Get Info window of that application. IF you are running OS X this should adjust automatically.

A

Subject: RE: Tech: Using Epson scanner with iMac
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 07:03 PM

I can't comment specifically on any iMac setup, but have been "down the road" a bit with scanning.

You do say that you have tried adjusting "scan quality," but the tendency, with most of us when we're "new to scanning" is to try to use far "higher quality" than is actually useful. Without some experience with your scanner, it may be rather astonishing when you find out what file sizes you get with the settings that seem "right" when you first start scanning.

Although I have found it useful to scan a very few antique heirloom pictures at 1200 dpi, where they needed "fixing" of large rips, tears, soda pop stains, and such, for most stuff, even for "archiving" photos 300 dpi is probably excessive.

My Epson Perfection 1200u has a flatbed scannable area of about 8.5 x 11.7 inches, and a scan with setting to "Black and White Document" at "300 dpi" produces a "raw" (.bmp) file of about 8.5MB (bit depth 8) for an 8.5 x 11.7 "page." At 150 dpi, you still get about 2MB. The same scan area, set for "Color Document" at "300 dpi jumps to 25.5MB.

A typical snapshot photo, 4" x 6" nominal size, scanned as "Color Photo" at "300 dpi," saves as a .bmp with the default 24 bit color depth of about 6 MB. My scanning program "offers" to save at 32 bit color depth, which implies that the scanner actually sent almost 8MB to the computer.

Even with some experience, if you scan color snapshots at 300 dpi and save as 72 dpi "high quality" .jpg (about 26KB each, only a little excessive for most web posting), it's easy to forget that the scanner and the computer both had to process them each as 8MB files until you made your conversion and saved them at "usable" size and format.

"Professional sources" (a couple of good books) suggest that for most "snapshot" photos, scanning at 150 dpi is "more than adequate." For recording documents, probably a 72 dpi scan is more than "good enough," and you may be able to go somewhat lower if all you want is a "proof of existence" and won't have to make full scale prints. (Some microfilm archive systems "return" a full size 12 to 15 dpi image.)

Scanning is very resource intensive. While I can scan 75 to 100 snapshots (at 300 dpi – I'm a little A.R.) before I stop scanning and save them all, I get there by assigning at least 20GB on my hard drive for the scanner temp files.

The typical "symptom" of running out of resources is a scan that "hangs." It looks like it's sending the file to the computer, but it just "stops" and doesn't finish the send. The scanning program typically reports "no file sent." (After you get up and scanning, if this happens after you've scanned, but not saved, a few pictures, don't try to fix it by "banging on the program." Just turn off the scanner, and you should get a "recovery" that lets you save the scans already up. At least it works on my setup.)

You may already have tried "all the settings," but if not, you may be able to get a scan by setting down to the lowest possible resolution (my Epson driver goes down to 50 dpi), and scanning as black and white document or photo, to minimize the amount of information being sent from the scanner. (You may get an even smaller file by choosing the "Line Art" or "Copy and Fax" settings, if they show in your program. I haven't tried them out to have samples to look at.) Once you get that first successful scan, you should have a better idea of what resources you need to assign to your scanner and program.

You will not likely be able to solve the problem by assigning more "RAM" memory. Nobody has that much. You most likely need to assign a temp space on a hard drive with a lot of room.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Using Epson scanner with iMac
From: GUEST,Donal
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 12:54 AM

SueB
      My iMac is on OS 9.1, so if you are on a later OS perhaps the setup is different to mine, but I am somewhat puzzled as to why you are trying to run your scanner through Appleworks, I run my (Agfa) scanner directly from an alias on the desktop, and have done so with several different scanners with no problems.
                                        Donal.

Subject: RE: Tech: Using Epson scanner with iMac
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 01:26 AM

Donal:

You mean you've run one scanner with several different scanning applications? Or you've run several scanners using one application?

The alias on the desktop points to an application rarther than a hardware device, even if it is just the driuver for that device. Appleworks includes a generic scanner interface for acquiring images using the TWAIN protocol. But it may or may not run on every scanner.

The memory problem is coming from either (a)in OS 9.x, the application actually needs more memory and can have more memory allocated to it. Or (b) the application is not appropriate for the OS level so it is acting as though it is a memory issue when in fact it is a problem in the version of the application.

I think one of those two.

Easy fix in either case.

A

Subject: RE: Tech: Using Epson scanner with iMac
From: GUEST,Donal
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 09:20 AM

Amos,
       You probably know a great deal more than me about computers, not too hard to do, but what I meant was that I have had a couple of Macs, and three scanners of various sorts and I've
never even thought about operating any of them through Appleworks. I click on the icon, or its
alias, and follow on from there. In the present case the Agfa icon brings up a screen which previews whatever is in the scanner, allows me to select a portion or all of the preview and whether I want it scanned as text, image etc., and then to choose where to send the resultant scan. Then I click 'scan' to complete the job. There may be some advantage to going through Appleworks that I don't know about, but surely doing so must use more memory than the method I've just described?
                                                       Donal

Subject: RE: Tech: Using Epson scanner with iMac
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 10:07 AM

Not necessarily. You're running an application that was installed with a scanner, and it fortunately has continued working after you have changed scanners, if I understand you rightly, which is good. Appleworks, trying to be a portfolio program with everything in it, may nothave done as good a job in the design of their scanner-operating software portion. But it isn't that complex and is pretty well mature technology so they may have just bought a module from someone -- who knows?

In any case the key question is the out-of-memory error; if running 9.x or earlier it can be adjusted directly.

John H: The error message is not because of insufficient RAM to store the whole scan; it is because of insufficient memory for the application program to run in, in some way. Typpically these programs write directly to disk. This sort of error is common in Mac environments under OS 9.x. It just requires tweaking a parameter to increase the mem space available to that program.

SueB: WHat OS are you running under?

A

Subject: RE: Tech: Using Epson scanner with iMac
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 05:47 PM

Amos -

I wasn't suggesting that you need enough RAM to store the whole scan. In fact, my point was meant to be that you do need enough disk space, usable as Temp, to store a surprisingly large amount of data in addition to enough RAM to run the program. I would expect running out of either would give similar "out of resources" errors. The tendency is, for those with limited experience with scanning, to underestimate the amount of disk space needed for scanning.

My comments have to be considered as "generic scanning info," since I know little about the details of Mac setup. I did not intend to say "this is a solution to your problem," just "here's something about scanning in general."

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Using Epson scanner with iMac
From: SueB
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 10:16 PM

Thanks, everyone -

I think Nancy's iMac runs OS 9 - I haven't had a chance to get back over there and try to find the Get Info button - where should I look for that, do you think? Don't mean to sound like a complete idiot, but I've always been a PC girl, and trying to find what I need on her iMac is like trying to find my way through a room in the dark where someone has moved the furniture -

you guys are the greatest --Suzanne

(FWIW, clicking the Epson icon has no result - have to open application program, then clicking Epson icon will work - this corresponds with what it says in the manual. Strange. )

Subject: RE: Tech: Using Epson scanner with iMac
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 10:24 PM

SueB:

If it is running OS 9.x then what you need to do is find the application program icon (probably in a folder called Applications somewhere) for the program that was giving you the memory error message. Click once (not twicve) on it so it is "selected" and press Command +"I" and a little info window will pop up giving you various information about that program. On the "Memory" section of the Info Window you have the choice of increasing the memory allocated to that particular program. Try increasing it by half again, roughly. Use round numbers.

Then close the window, and just to be sure, to "Special"-->Restart. Once you've restarted the machine the new settings should take effect and the program should run without running out of memory. You only have to do this once, usually, and technically you don't really have to restrat the machine but it is a more through approach.

A