Simplified Scanning with Image Capture

In this video we look at simplified scanning using the Image Capture on the Mac. With simplified scanning, you just set a few options to scan and Image Capture will do the rest.

Selecting your Scanner
First thing you’ll need to do is select your scanner. To do that, go up to ‘Shared’ on the left side click on ‘Show’. You’ll see your scanner listed there.

Scanner Modes
There’s basically two different ways to use a scanner with Image Capture, you have simplified scanning, and then there is detailed scanning. Simplified scanning offers fewer options, while detailed scanning offers more options such as image correction, DPI, and file type.

When you click on your scanner, Image Capture will be in one of these two modes. If you have a very simplified interface, you are in simplified scanning mode. If you see more options, you’re probably looking at the detailed view and what you want to do is click on the button called ‘Hide details’ then you’ll see the more simple interface.

Simplified Scanning Mode
So what options do you have with simplified scanning? The first thing is, where do you want to save your scanned documents to?You can set it to different folders and apps. I usually leave it for the Desktop.

The next option is ‘Detect Separate Items’. If you have separate items on your scanner, what Image Capture will do is detect those and scan them as separate items. If you want to scan them as a single document, then what you’d do is select ‘Detect Enclosing Box’. If you’re scanning a letter, you may want to use letter or A4. Also, when it detect separate items it will straighten out any scans.

The next option is for ‘Use Document Feeder’. If you have a scanner that has a document feeder and you want to use that, click on this and you’ll use the document feeder. You may or may not see this option depending on if your scanner has a document feeder.

Now all you need to do is just click on ‘Scan’ and it will scan those documents. When you scan, the first thing it does is an overview scan. So it’s just a quick scan. Then what it will do is it will do a more detailed scan.

To clear your preview, what you do is I go up to ‘Shared’ on the left side and then hide your scanner. Click on ‘Show’ again to get a clear preview.

So that’s how we do a simplified scan using Image Capture. When you use simplified scan, basically all you do is set where you want to save you scans to, if you want to detect separate items or enclose them in one bounding box, and if you want to use a document feeder. After that, just click on ‘Scan’ and Image Capture does the rest.

See this lesson in Action
If you want to see how this in action, I show you how this all works in the video above.