TWAIN plug-in | Photoshop CS4, CS5, CS6

TWAIN is an interface used to import from imaging devices, such as scanners. For more information, see the TWAIN Working Group's website at www.twain.org. The Photoshop TWAIN plug-in connects with compatible devices that are installed on your computer.

NOTE: Do not use the TWAIN plug-in from Photoshop CS5 downloads. You must install the Photoshop CS6 version of TWAIN plug-in for Photoshop CS6.

TWAIN has been the main technology used for scanning in Photoshop for many versions. However, it is not always updated for new operating systems, and therefore may work less reliably than other scanning solutions, such as third party utilities such as VueScan (http://www.hamrick.com/)., the scanner software that comes with your scanner, or other scanning technologies. These third party utilities are dedicated scanning solutions, and they are more appropriate for critical or high-volume scanning. If you use a third-party scanning application, save your scanned images as TIFF files, then open them into Photoshop.

TWAIN should work for basic scanning needs, but if you experience issues with TWAIN, try one of the other scanning technologies described below.

Note: To use any scanner technology, you need to install a scanner driver. This will probably be installed via your operating system, but you may need to contact your scanner manufacturer, especially for older scanners.

Windows
In Windows, the Photoshop TWAIN plug-in can be used if you run Photoshop CS6 in 32-bit mode. TWAIN is not supported in Photoshop when it’s run in 64-bit mode. If you need a scanning solution when you run Photoshop CS6 in 64-bit mode, use the WIA (Windows Image Acquisition) interface for your device, if it’s available. WIA is also available for use when running Photoshop in 32-bit mode. Contact your scanner manufacturer for more information.

Mac OS
In Mac OS, you can use the TWAIN plug-in to scan when running Photoshop CS6 (Photoshop CS6 only runs in 64-bit mode). Not many scanner manufacturers have released 64-bit versions of their scanner drivers, so you may not be able to use TWAIN. Contact your scanner manufacturer for more information.

If your scanner manufacturer does not support scanning in 64-bit mode, or you have issues scanning with TWAIN, you can scan into Photoshop CS6 using Apple’s ImageKit technology, which is built into Photoshop CS6, does not need a plug-in to be installed, and provides access to a large number of scanners.

The TWAIN plug-in is available with the other optional plug-ins for Photoshop CS6:

For Mac OS:

http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/photoshop/mac/13.x/Optional_Plug_Ins_Release.dmg

For Windows:

http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/photoshop/win/13.x/Win_Optional_Plug-Ins.zip

After you download the appropriate file, double-click the file to decompress it. If you are asked, extract all files.

Windows
Note: For Windows, the downloadable TWAIN plug-in is 32-bit only.

To install the TWAIN plug-in for Windows:
1. Exit from Photoshop.
2.Copy the Twain_32.8BA plug-in from the Optional Plug-ins Win32/Plug-ins folder to the appropriate folder below.
    a. Windows XP: \\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6\Plug-Ins\
    b.Windows Vista and Windows 7 (32-bit): \\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6\Plug-Ins\

    c. Windows Vista and Windows 7 (64-bit): \\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6\Plug-Ins\
3. Re-open Photoshop.
4. Download the latest scanner driver from your scanner manufacturer’s web site and install the driver.
5. Connect the scanner to the system.

To use TWAIN to scan images into Photoshop:
1. Open Photoshop 32-bit by clicking the “Adobe Photoshop CS6 (32-bit)” short cut.
2. Select File > Import > [scanner name].

Mac OS

1. Quit Photoshop.

2. Copy the TWAIN.plugin file from the download folder to the Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS6/Plug-ins folder.

3. Reopen Photoshop.

To use TWAIN in Photoshop, choose File > Import > [scanner name].

For Windows, the downloadable TWAIN plug-in is 32-bit only.

For Mac OS, the Photoshop CS5 12.0.4 update includes some TWAIN fixes, and a new downloadable TWAIN plug-in solves two more issues: you can scan multiple documents at once, and Photoshop no longer crashes on the second scanning job. 

In Mac OS 10.6.x, the TWAIN plug-in supports 64-bit operation of Photoshop CS5. However, the scanner manufacturer must provide a 64-bit scanner driver, and very few do. Contact your scanner manufacturer to determine if a 64-bit driver is available. If not, you must run Photoshop in 32-bit mode.

On 32-bit versions of Windows, the Photoshop TWAIN plug-in is installed by default. Because the plug-in isn't 64-bit, Photoshop does not install it on 64-bit editions of Windows.

In Mac OS, the Photoshop TWAIN plug-in is not installed by default. See below for installation instructions. Adobe strongly suggests that if you require the plug-in in Mac OS 10.6, you first install Rosetta. 

Note: For more information about the optional plug-ins, see Plug-in Changes with Photoshop CS5 (TechNote cpsid_82824).

When you use TWAIN to import from an imaging device, you may encounter problems like the following:

• Photoshop or your scanner application freezes or quits unexpectedly.
• You are unable to close the scanner window.
• You encounter errors during import.
• The preview of the imported image, or the imported image itself, appears incorrect onscreen.

Try the following solutions:

• On 64-bit Windows, use the Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) interface to import from your device. For instructions, see Windows Help or contact your device manufacturer.
• On 32-bit Windows, update the drivers for your device. For assistance with this process, see the website for the device manufacturer. If the problem persists with the most recent drivers, try one or both of the following:
  
  
  • Import from your device using WIA.
  • Using the software included with your imaging device, import and save images, and then open the saved images in Photoshop.