are you installing the most recent driver from Canon, or from CD? just in the last week my LiDE 80 quit working - any app that tried to scan would crash - but downloading a slightly newer driver from Canon fixed the problem.
As far as bare minimum install, I haven't used PSE, but for Graphic Converter, just need the single ScanGear file in the plug-ins folder
As far as bare minimum install, I haven't used PSE, but for Graphic Converter, just need the single ScanGear file in the plug-ins folder