Image Capture needs a little love

I am sure ImageCapture might be a fantastic application if you have a scanner that it can recognize. Why is it that the newest scanners launched by HP are not supported by ImageCapture. I have a scanjet 4670 and simply cannot use ImageCapture with it. Disappointing...totally disappointing

I use Image Capture as a front-end to iPhoto since iPhoto does NOT recognize the ICC tags my camera adds, and uses Generic RGB (ew) profile for everything. Image Capture can tag photos as it downloads, so I have it set to download to disk, tag, then import to iPhoto.

tf - everything is relative. there's no argument there. you and I are the types of people who can't want to take things apart when we first open the box. I do that with software just as well as hardware so image capture is no stranger to me. but i challenge you to name 20 - or even 5 - features/apps included in the default installation of OS X are as unsung a hero as IC. And most of what's in the Utilities folder doesn't count since the average user will never have any need to touch any of those things. The exception to that is DigitalColor Meter, which I think ROCKS and it also is mostly ignored by the average user despite its usefulness ;)

I use Image Capture mostly for scanning; I just plug in my scanner (an Epson Perfection 1250) & the program recognizes it & does a preview scan of whatever's on the glass. The only bug in it is that the channels (red, green, blue) are all a little out of sync with each other, & I have to line them back up in Photoshop.

David, what do you mean? There's just as much info on Image Capture as any other feature, if not more so. And IC supports a "fair" number of scanners out of the box and all TWAIN devices (and really, shouldn't a scanner be using TWAIN anyway?)... and Apple provides links to all proprietary scanner apps available AND VueScan: http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/scanners.html More info about IC: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/imagecapture/

Laurie, it's all relative. I could point to 20 other included apps that I think are much less utilized than Image Capture. Guess what? Apple doesn't advertise every component, feature, or app included in the basic system... They hardly advertise any of it at all. Basically, I'm saying it's relative, but this sounds to me like someone discovered this app yesterday, and because they didn't know about it, they presume no one does.

I do not ever remember Apple making one mention of the image capture app in any release of OS X. If they want to make it useful they might add the ability to control scanners to the app. If Hamrick can make VueScan, why can't Apple add basic scanner functionality to the OS?

Yes, I agree. iPhoto sucks compared to other organizational programs I've used. However, I haven't tried iPhoto '05, which seems like it solves a lot of problems with the old iPhoto (video clips, image editing, etc.) Is it still slow, though? Has anyone seen Picasa by Google for Windows? That's an impressive image organizer. Amazingly elegant for a windows app.

tf - it's absolutely under-used. the overwhelming majority of my clients and even many of my Mac-using friends who I consider to be pretty savvy either forget it exists or never used it to begin with. The first time you plug in your digital camera, iPhoto launches and since most people want to use iPhoto they click to let iPhoto launch as the default every time they connect. And with iPhoto '05, they don't even need to make a trip to the finder to copy those video clips off the camera or media cards. most people don't think "hey i wonder if i can share this scanner" so Image Capture sits dormant in their Applications folder. You (and perhaps other regular TUAW readers) are the exception, not the norm, when it comes to Image Capture :)

What makes you think it's under-used? Almos anyone with a digicam uses it quite extensively. As for the Geoff's comment: LOTS of us HATE iPhoto! That's why. Why should importing be tied to a limited and buggy organizing app?