Scanner doesn't scan colors all of a sudden.

[KAB1001]

All of a sudden, my scans only produce black and white images.  Is there a setting.  I've reinstalled the HP software and checked all connections.

[MKazi]

@KAB1001

Welcome to HP Support Forums.

I came across your post and would like to assist you.

I understand that while scanning form your HP Photosmart 6520 e-All-in-One Printer, the resulting scans have black and white images.

• Does it mean that the printer produces scans of black and white of the original document? Or is it product some random images it produces in black and white?
• Is the printer able to make a photocopy in color? If yes then it indicates that this is not a hardware issue?
• What application are you using to scan?

Meanwhile, please update the Mac OS on your computer and try to scan.

Also, try other scanning methods in the Mac OS. You may refer to "Are other scanning apps or methods available?" from this HP document.

Hope this helps. Feel free to keep me posted on how it goes.

Cheers! 🙂

[KAB1001]

In response to MKazi. Yes it copies and prints in color as usual.  But when I scan a document with color or a photo now, it saves it as blackk and white.  I have uninstalled and reinstalled the driver, have rebooted the printer several times, checked all connections with no luck.  It seems there should be something in settings to resolve this issue.

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@KAB1001 wrote:

All of a sudden, my scans only produce black and white images.  Is there a setting.  I've reinstalled the HP software and checked all connections.

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[MKazi]

@KAB1001

Glad to have you back. 

Did you try to scan using other apps and check if it helps?

Secondly, were you able to update the Mac OS?

You may also update the firmware on the printer by following the below steps:
 

NOTE: The printer should be restarted after the firmware update installs successfully. 

Please reply with the above information. Meanwhile, I will do some more research and get back to you in the next 48 hours. 

Thanks for your patience. Cheers! 🙂

[MKazi]

@KAB1001

Thank you for your patience. 

We haven't heard from you.

This post is with reference to the thread you had recently created at HP Forums.

During more research, I found the minimum system requirements for the printer and it shows that the printer needs Mac OS X v10.6, OS X v10.7 Lion, OS X v10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X v10.9 Mavericks, or OS X v10.10 Yosemite to function correctly. You had mentioned in your post that you're using Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and older. 

So this could one of the reasons the color scanning is not happening. Therefore, as suggested previously, try to upgrade the operating system to a supported one and it should help. 

Hope this helps. Feel free to keep me posted for any further questions. 

All the best!

If you would like to thank us for the efforts to help you, feel free to mark this post as "Accept as solution". That’ll help everyone find the solution and help the community to grow.