scanner

[Nuso]

I have just purchased Affinity. My Canon MP800 does not show up in Acquire image

[Lee D]

Hi Nuso,

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

I assume the scanner drivers are installed and that it shows in Preferences > Printers & Scanners, are you still able to use the Canon software to scan? Do other apps detect the scanner?

 

Have you tried removing and downloading and installing the latest drivers from Canon, if available.

[Nuso]

I can still scan into Acrobat and Photoshop. All the drivers are current. I uninstalled and reinstalled the device in Printers & Scanners, where it's scan function no longer shows up.

[Lee D]

I found some similar posts relating to the MP800 on the Apple support forums, not being able to scan. You may want to try some of the suggestions to see if any of them resolve the issue. As long as the scanner shows in Printers & Scanners Affinity should pick it up. 

[Nuso]

That Apple forum is old--doesn't apply under El Capitan. So far as I can tell, Affinity relies on Image Capture, and Image Capture may not have been updated for El Capitan, hence for certain scanners, like mine, it's broken. So sadly it seems that I can't use Affinity for one of the things for which I bought it. 

[R C-R]

It isn't exactly that Image Capture (or anything else in El Capitan) is broken. It is that Canon has stopped supporting the MP800 (& a lot of other of its products) with printer software updates that are fully compatible with the latest OS X versions.

 

See Apple's Printer and scanner software available for download for your Mac support document for the details. (You can use your browser's text search function to find "MP800" on the list, & if you do so you will see it is on the lengthy "Printer software no longer available as software updates" list, just like my Canon MP620.)

 

If you go to Canon's web site & look for printer software updates for your MP800 like the Apple article suggests, you will find the same thing I did for my MP620: Canon hasn't updated its driver software for that model in some time. What this means is even if the device shows up in Printers & Scanners, & even if it prints with few or no problems in El Capitan, the scanner driver won't be recognized by El Capitan's scanner support framework & neither Affinity nor Image Capture will be able to use it.

 

So at this point you are probably wondering why if that is true you can still scan with Photoshop. I am almost certain that is because PS is using the TWAIN API to access the scanner, & the old Canon TWAIN "data sources" files (probably in the /Library/Image Capture/TWAIN Data Sources folder). Aside from Adobe, a few other apps still support TWAIN in El Capitan (like Lemke Software's GraphicConverter) but unfortunately Affinity does not.

 

I don't have an El Capitan-compatible version of PS to test with but I do have GraphicsConverter. That app has separate File > Scan menu items for scanning with Image Capture (which uses the scanner support framework just like Affinity & Image Capture) & scanning with TWAIN (which uses the TWAIN data sources). The scan with TWAIN option works with the old Canon Data Source files (which for the MP620 have not been updated since 2008!) but that is the only app I have that still supports TWAIN.

 

If Canon would just update its driver software for our scanners this would not be a problem, but the chances of that happening are slim to none, so all we can hope for is Affinity eventually supporting TWAIN. Personally, I am not going to wait for that. I am going to get rid of the MP620 when it runs out of ink & buy something from some other manufacturer with a better track record for supporting newer OS X versions.

[Nuso]

thank you--you have clarified many things for me, and showed me that I hadn't been reading that Apple page properly

[Katya]

I had the same problem using Affinity with my CanoScan 9000F.  My scanner simply didn't show up as a choice using Affinity, but did with Photoshop Elements.

 

After checking out manuals, posts (here, on the Canon Site, and on the Apple site), I called the tech support line for Canon.  A very pleasant and knowledgeable technician explained that Apple is moving away from Twain to ICA.  She suggested I disconnect the USB cable from my Mac, uninstall (see Canon manual) the ScanGear and restart the computer.  It only took a few minutes, and my scanner showed up!  I can easily scan now with Affinity.  Perhaps you will have the same experience with your scanner.  Good luck!

 

 

[R C-R]

Katya, could be wrong about this but I think the reason uninstalling the Canon software works for you is that the CanoScan 9000F is still on Apple's supported list (& has been recently updated), so the appropriate driver is included in OS X.

 

Unfortunately, both Nuso's MP800 & my MP620 are on the 'no longer available' list, which means Canon has stopped supplying Apple with drivers for those models.