Getting rid of "popcorn" texture

My wife started painting some of the ceilings at our rental, and the popcorn texture just made a huge mess.  It kept coming off and dropping paint everywhere, sticking to the roller, etc.  So I took one of these floor scrapers that we got from Harbor Freight to scrape up linoleum.  It worked wonders.  The picture below is the after picture.  That makes it much easier to paint, and is closer to the more modern "orange peel" textures.  Just be careful; I didn't have any problems, but I imagine you could gouge the ceiling if you don't stay flat with the scraper blade.

The scraper we used