Which slide scanners work with the Mac

Even a used CoolScan 5000 is an expensive investment. It pays to look up the specific VueScan support page for the given scanner model as I mentioned above — as there are some models where VueScan won't support the scanner without prerequisite vendor drivers.

When Hamrick first started, they had a local Nikon dealer that loaned them Nikon scanners to reverse engineer and support in VueScan.

The slide scanners whose vendors still provide drivers for your specific operating systems, or if the slide scanner is supported in the paid (free trial) VueScan Professional (which may or may not require vendor drivers).

The VueScan site will state whether a specific scanner requires vendor drivers (e.g. Epson V600 Perfection), or does not (e.g. Epson v700, v750, v800, v850). Canon appears to have exited the slide scanning market though VueScan Professional does support several of their prior slide scanning hardware. It also supports all of the discontinued Nikon slide scanners, current Pacific Image scanners, Mustek devices, and many others.

I often recommend VueScan Professional as I have owned it since 2010 without paying any upgrade fee for subsequent versions. I never receive any financial or other consideration from the VueScan vendor for recommending their product. Although I have several hundred slides, I haven't taken the plunge into a slide scanner purchase, and still do document scanning.

Almost any slide scanner with a USB port will work with a Mac. The limitations are generally dependent on whatever scanning app you are using.

Some slide scanners have/had a driver but even that has become less & less of a concern as Vuescan has developed interfaces for nearly all scanners on the market. If you check the Vuescan home page you can search the many scanners that are supported. Even my old Nikon Coolscan 5000 that I purchased over 15 years ago still works perfectly fine with Vuescan.

If you are looking at new scanners, the Plustek scanners are imho the only resonable consideration today. And while some flatbed scanners can scan film they are generally 1) very slow and 2) limited in the number of slides they can scan in a batch. I can scan batches faster with my Nikon 5000 film scanner than with my fancy new Epson 12000XL flatbed, and at higher resolution too. The Coolscan 5000 is still one of the most prized film scanners around and is readily available on the used market. Even Silverfast still supports it.