Not a good combination.
I finally got around to installing my Canon LiDE 30 scanner — I know it’s cheap junk, but that’s all I need — on my iMac. Much to my surprise the driver installer didn’t see Photoshop as a place to install a plugin. So I manually installed it And then it wouldn’t work.
So there goes another hour of my time to troubleshooting the problem.
It appears that Canon doesn’t have an Intel-native plugin for the scanner. The plugin was written for Power PC Macs. And Photoshop CS3 won’t run Power PC plugins on an Intel Mac.
This explains why the setup worked perfectly well on my Dual G5 (did I mention it’s for sale on eBay?) but won’t work on my new iMac.
I found information for a workaround on the Adobe forum. (Can you believe actually found helpful troubleshooting information on Adobe’s site?) The topic title is Scanner not recognised in Photoshop CS3. Someone named Buko suggests running Photoshop in Rosetta and explains how to do it:
do a get info on the CS3 application and check the start in Rosetta button
I followed these brief instructions (see screenshot) and restarted Photoshop. And guess what? It worked.
Rosetta is an Apple technology that makes it possible to run non-Intel native or non-Universal Mac OS applications on an Intel Mac. As this Info window illustrations, Photoshop gives you the option of running Photoshop in Rosetta when necessary to ensure support for older plugins. You can turn this option on before you start Photoshop to access otherwise incompatible software-driven features. You can turn the option off and restart Photoshop when you don’t need those features.
I’m no under-the-hood programming expert, so I was wondering what the pitfalls of running Photoshop in Rosetta were. I Googled and found an article on tuaw.com titled, “Photoshop seems to run fine in Rosetta.” Although the article is nearly 2 years old, I agree that Photoshop seems to work okay.
The suggestion on the Adobe support forum was to run Photoshop in Rosetta only when you expect to scan something. This is probably a good idea, especially if you do a lot of intensive graphics processing. But there are other ways to scan that don’t require Photoshop at all. The CanoScan Toolbox software, which comes with the scanner, works fine and can send the image to Photoshop to be opened. That seems to be a good workaround, especially if, like me, you don’t scan often.
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27 responses so far ↓
1 naquada // Nov 2, 2007 at 10:22 am
i managed to get my photoshop CS (not even cs2!) working 90% under intel leopard.. I ‘obtained’ a copy of CS3, installed that, and then removed it.. photoshop then seemed to work fine.. as with the canon drivers.. it reported fine were ‘damaged’ so i reinstalled and they seemed to work fine…
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2 Leah // Nov 19, 2007 at 6:45 pm
I downloaded the driver, installed it, check marked the “Open using Rosetta” under the Photoshop Info. Still the Scan Gear is not popping up under Import in Photoshop. Am I suppose to put the driver in the Photoshop plug in folder. Can you help me?
3 Kirsten // Nov 22, 2007 at 2:43 am
I have a dual G5 Power Mac (not Intel, so I don’t need Rosetta), and have just installed Leopard & Photoshop CS3. I have installed, un-installed and re-installed Scan Gear, but it refuses to show up under Import in Photoshop. Any chance someone knows why?
4 Maria Langer // Nov 22, 2007 at 8:18 am
The ScanGear driver (I believe) needs to installed in Photoshop’s Plugins folder. (Don’t have my computer in front of me right now and can’t confirm.) But those of you having trouble, should try that. Be sure to restart Photoshop before trying. Good luck.
5 Kirsten // Nov 22, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Thanks Maria, but no-go so far — first, I un-installed ScanGear (which was in my Applications folder). Then I re-installed it into two Plug-in locations: Applications>Canoscan Toolbox 4.1>Plug-Ins & System Folder>Application Support>Real>Plugins. Nothing in Photoshop. I kinda give up, but how do I connect to the scanner other than thru Photoshop? When I try to open ScanGear by double-clicking the icon, I get “Could not complete your request because Photoshop does not recognise this type of file”. Sheesh!
6 Kirsten // Nov 22, 2007 at 3:09 pm
YIKES! SCRATCH THAT!
I am a moron.
I just followed the instructions carefully and put the driver into the correct folder (Photoshop’s Plug-ins) and it worked!!!
THANK YOU, THANK YOU — I’m beaming good vibes from kiwi-land.
7 Maria Langer // Nov 22, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Ah! Glad it worked!
8 Leah // Nov 22, 2007 at 5:31 pm
It just doesn’t work with the Intel processor. Canon hasn’t updated the driver software yet. You can buy a VueScan driver that’ll work: http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html. But it doesn’t work through Photoshop and the trial version has a watermark.
9 Maria Langer // Nov 23, 2007 at 7:06 am
Actually it DOES work on an Intel processor if you set up Photoshop to run in Rosetta as described in my post. Really. I can’t justify the purchase of a new scanner when I only scan about once or twice a month.
10 Leah // Nov 23, 2007 at 11:01 am
Success! Thank you so much!!!
11 chris // Nov 25, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Thanks Maria, you F-ing ROCK! you just saved me hours of emotional compu-drama. Keep up the good work!
12 Candace // Nov 30, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Maria, this is FAB! You saved me hours of weeping and gnashing my teeth as well.
13 Pish // Dec 7, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Many thanks from me as well. Worked like a charm!
14 Shardul // Dec 10, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Maria, YOU ROCK! I followed your instructions (above) and it worked! So helpful - thanks heaps…
Shardul the Grateful.
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15 Chico // Jan 14, 2008 at 5:11 pm
The Rosetta option worked! Thanks so much! Wasted all afternoon trying to get it to work and the best I found was VueScan software which costs almost as much as a new scanner. Thanks much!!!!
16 Simi // Jan 20, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Worked a charm! thank you.
17 Hanna // Feb 17, 2008 at 7:31 pm
***Running ScanGear on Leopard overloads my CPU!!***
I had the same results as all of you using my canoscan lide 30 with leopard. It seems to work fine with photoshop running in Rosetta and with the toolbox application, but as soon as I run the ‘CanoScan Toolbox’ software it overloads the CPU on my macbook and forces the cooling fan to run on high to keep the processor from overheating.
Too much of this can be potentially damaging to your computer!
The way to test for this is to run the “Activity Monitor” application (in the applications folder under ‘Utilities’) and check the CPU usage of the ‘CanoScan Toolbox’ application while you have the program open. In my case it usually reaches 100% when the scanner is idle.
Another easy way to test for this is to listen for the fan in your computer. It will start humming relatively loud if the CPU is overloaded. This should happen pretty soon after you open ‘Toolbox’
I’m curious to know if this happens with other Leopard users, and if anyone has a solution for it.
If this does occur on your computer, I wouldn’t recommend heavy usage of the software, and scanning through photoshop doesn’t help either because the ScanGear software will run through photoshop causing the same problem.
I hope this is helpful.
18 TobiasMik // Mar 7, 2008 at 4:37 pm
thanks for usefull info - it worked right away for me :)
19 Chris // Mar 19, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Help!
Okay, I am a year old Mac user. I am on Leopard, using CS3. I have an old LiDE 30 scanner. I downloaded the latest driver from Canon. Installed it. I also download the Toolbox. It ask to set the application to scan to. So I selected Photoshop CS3. It says plug in cannot be found. I look at the Plug In folder in the CanoScan 4.1 toolbox folder located in my Applications, and there is nothing there. How or where do I install a Plug In for Photoshop. Am I missing something somewhere cause nothing seems to be working. I greatly appreciate the help.
20 Maria Langer // Mar 20, 2008 at 4:31 am
Chris, I really don’t know why you can’t find the plugin. Have you consulted the folks at Canon about this? Have you tried installing it again? Did you read my instructions above?
Wish I could help, but the above summarizes pretty much all I know about the scanner and using it with Photoshop.
21 Maria Langer // Mar 20, 2008 at 4:34 am
Hanna, sorry I missed your comment. No, this does not happen to me. But the problem may be due to your processor and its speed. I’m using the scanner with a new 24-inch iMac with lots of RAM. The scanner doesn’t seem to affect it much more than anything else. If your computer barely meets the Leopard requirements, that might be what’s causing it to heat up. My PowerBook G4 chokes on many tasks, even running Tiger.
22 DM // Mar 22, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Maria:
Thanks yo your post, I didn’t have to waste time looking for a solution to this. However, I DID find a way to get around this without having to go through the Rosetta work-around. Simply install the CanoScan Toolbox software and it will work. Granted, it’s not Photoshop, but I use my scanner as often as you, and this will work just fine for me.
23 Maria Langer // Mar 23, 2008 at 9:25 am
DM, actually, that’s how I do it, too. I have it linked to Photoshop so when the image is scanned, it opens in Photoshop for editing. Can’t be bothered with the Rosetta thing.
24 John P // Apr 22, 2008 at 10:23 am
How do you switch Photoshop CS3 back to Universal once you’ve checked “Open using Rosetta”?
25 Maria Langer // Apr 27, 2008 at 8:14 am
John, follow the instructions here, but turn the check box OFF.
26 ESantacruz // May 9, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Thank you Maria, It worked just fine.
27 Bill // May 13, 2008 at 11:05 am
I JUST FIGURED IT OUT, VERY SIMPLE !
I have intel Mac, 10.5 Os x, CS3 photoshop, in Rosetta mode — the “import” never showed up under the file pull-down section, but go to the very last choice under file menu and you will see: ‘Show all menu items’ — simply press this and the ‘import’ selection will show and you can scan away !!!
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