Connecting Canon S30 to iMac

[brian0526]

I'm very frustrated. I've been using my Canon S30 for a little over a year now on my PC. I recently decided to try to use it on my new iMac and I'm having a serious problem.

When I connect the camera, iPhoto starts up and I can see the camera with the photos ready to download. I can even download them using iPhoto. But, I don't like the fact I can't selectively download photos. I have PhotoShop Elements 2.0. I can get Image Capture to see the camera and selectively download photos. But, I cannot get PhotoShop Elements to work with the camera at all. I have spent all afternoon on the phone with Canon support. I've called about four times and gotten four different answers. Some there say the S30 isn't compatible with OS X. But, the Canon website says it is. The PhotoShop Elements manual says I should install the software that came with my camera on the Mac. The Canon website says OS X already has software that supports the camera.

I've been told when I plug the camera into the USB port, I should see the camera as a drive in the Computer window under Finder. But, I'm not seeing it there at all. Has anyone had any luck getting an S30 to work with OS X?

I'm confused as to how iPhoto and Image Capture can see the camera. But, PhotoShop Elements and Finder cannot.

Thanks,
brian

 

[ftaok]

What is it that you're trying to do? You've said that Image Capture allows you to download selected images. What else do you want to do?

 

[brian0526]

What I'm trying to do...

I wanted to use PhotoShop Elements to download the images since I'll be using PhotoShop to edit the images. I was under the impression that my camera should appear like a disk in Finder because a friend's (Sony camera) appears that way. I figured if I could make that happen, PhotoShop Elements could see the camera and I could use that as my default software to download images.

I talked with someone at AppleCare. He basically said that since iPhoto is seeing the camera, that it is working as designed. He said I'd need to talk to Adobe about why PhotoShop isn't seeing the camera. I'm pretty sure Adobe will send me back to Canon.

I can live with using Image Capture to get the pictures. I'm just confused as to why when I connect the camera, one application can see it and two others (Finder and PhotoShop Elements) cannot.

Thanks,
brian

 

[Ugg]

When I used my camera (Olympus C 360L) under OS9 it did display an icon on the desktop, I would open it up and then could browse through the pics and pick which ones I wanted to keep and dump the rest. Since using OS X it only allows me to operate via iPhoto. I liked it the other way better because it was very snappy and now is very slow because iPhoto, while a cool idea, is too slow and cumbersome on my iMac DV 400. I can't figure out how to change it though.

 

[ftaok]

Sounds like you're out of luck with using the Photoshop Plug-In. I looked at Canon's website and it seems that the plug-in doesn't work with OS X and it won't in the future. Their reasoning is that Image Capture works and Canon's stand alone utility works in OS X.

I wonder if newer Canon digicams will include a Photoshop Plug-In that's OS X native?

 

[brian0526]

Well I spoke to about four different people at Canon and the best I can summarize all of their answers is "I don't know.". One told me the S30 isn't supported under OS X (that's just wrong- it is supported by iPhoto, ImageCapture- native with the Mac and ImageBrowser- available for download from Canon's site in an OS X compatible release). One told me I needed to buy a new Solutions Disk that would support OS X (that's wrong too, I was able to upgrade the Image Browser software by downloading it from Canon's website- I did need the original disk to confirm I had "bought" the software previously).

It looks like I will not be able to get the camera to appear as a drive on the desktop and I will not be able to get PhotoShop to access it directly. However, I was able to get Image Capture (ships with the iMac) to work with it and it does allow you to download only the pictures you want and shows thumbnails before downloading. I also was able to get the ImageBrowser from Canon to work.

My brother suggested something else if neither of these solutions is exactly what you're looking for. A USB card reader should allow you to grab individual photos and will also save on battery life on your camera, which quickly gets sucked down if you leave it connected to the USB port while you're playing around with your images. I'll probably go that route soon.

Thanks!

brian