Thank you for making this video - it was very helpful. I was looking for answers to questions about the software that the manual didn't explain and learned not only those things, but more that I didn't know that I should be aware of. To the person who complained about the video being too long: you can see the length of a TH-cam video before you start it - if it is too long for you, you don't have to watch it.
This is an EXCELLENT presentation and demonstration. You have answered the many questions I have about the scanner itself and the detailed workflow. Thank you! I have been researching how to scan 1000s of family slides and your detailed walk-through of this machine has helped me decide in favor of this scanner!
I agree word for word. I was truly lost and you presentation was complete. Consider yourself hugged by some one special in your life from me. ;-). Thank you again.
What a coincidence that I've been watching your train odyssey videos and ended up here after ordering this scanner and looking for video guides. I inherited about 2000 slides from my grandfather and after doing some research I found out that purchasing this machine is cheaper than using a professional digitizing service, even though I had it shipped from the states to Europe. Plus I get to learn something new in the process. The final scan in the sequence takes a lot of time even with MagicTouch off. I recently scanned a full tray and it took about two and a half hours at 2500 DPI. I believe the first two passes on every slide are pre-scans even though you won't see the previews when using the Multiscan option. Something I'd like to add - and this is briefly mentioned in the manual - is that apparently you may get better results by inserting the slides so that the emulsion side (the less shiny side, with film manufacturer markings) is facing the end of the tray. I've found that I get better colors this way but the scanned images are horizontally mirrored and I need to manually flip them all afterwards. I use Darktable for post-processing and organizing and luckily it's pretty easy to edit whole batches.
Many thanks for the video. I have one coming, and this really was very informative. I will stick to using your settings for resolution and JPEG compression.
I just finished a 4000 slide project using this exact same scanner. It was well worth the effort at the end of day to to have all my father's slides available online. The reviews scared me that I'd get tons of jams, but I only got one misfeed in the 4000 slides. Also chose 2500 dpi. I found that higher made the process too slow, and the quality difference was negligible. I'm finding that owning this thing is kind of like owning a pickup truck. You get asked to scan people's slides, just like getting asked to help move :)
Chris McGee, yes you can. I think I said so in the video somewhere. Supposedly, it also works with some similar magazines used on some old slide projectors.
I affixed typed-caption stickers to the wide side of each mounted 35mm slide. Can the Pacific Image "PowerSlide X" scan the *ENTIRE* 2X2-inch mounted slide so the captions are readable?
cnlicnli, you seem to misunderstand the entire optics of slides. By their nature, they require light to pass through them in order to be viewed/scanned. But you want to scan the surface of their frames, which is a very different way of working, optically. No, this scanner will not read text written on the surfaces of the slide frames.
I purchased this scanner about a year ago. To me, it is hands down the best bulk slide scanner out there and essential if you have thousands of slides to digitize. That being said, the documentation you receive with this scanner is absolutely horrible and the driver/software interface is clunky at best. I also had to contact them because I couldn't even get the drivers to download as showed in your video. Once you get the process down, it's fairly easy to scan your collection.
Just wanted to add I accidentally figured out how to do batches without rebooting the user manufacturer's instructions didn't work very well for me... So here is the secret before you turn the machine on make sure the slide tray is loaded and butted up against the pusher arm...Turn the machine on....wait 1.5minutes for calibration to end and green light solid....Open Cyberview...Click reload magazine icon in Cyberview....then run your multiscan... Scan job finishes...Reload your tray butted up to pusher arm....Click reload magazine icon...run your multiscan...repeat... Prior to this I would have to reboot every time both PC and Powerslide X cause something would freeze the app.
Gabriel Olar, I think I covered these points, one way or another, in this video. But you are correct. And the instructions tell none of this. I learned this stuff by emailing and talking to Pacific Images's tech support agent in the States.
@@myronachtman4304 , I talked about this in the video. I had essentially no issues with jamming. I also made some suggestions for how to avoid jamming.
Robert Jensen, slower than what? If you mean that scanners are slower in general when asked to scan images at higher resolution, uh, yes, they certainly are.
this unit is a POS. Sure you can learn how to use it as described in this video...we did. It still sucks. I purchased it for professional/large volume scanning work. It lasted for a few hundred (50 slide tray). IT has a lot of mechanical gremlins and a lot of software driver problems. THe software is so dated most modern operating systems will not let you open it without overriding in security settings. Many people encounter a "calibration data error" problem at some point in its life...where it stops auto cropping. At that point it's basically done. It's not worth the money.
Johngoodell, you appear to be rating this product based solely on your own disappointing experience. And yet, a great many people have successfully used this product to scan huge collections of old slides with few, if any, glitches. Certainly it is unusual to have the product fail after only 50 trays. You did not say if you tried contacting the manufacturer for repair, etc. From your comment, I have to assume that you did not try that avenue. This product definitely suffers from outdated and clunky software which can be problematic to download and install without a primer such as my video, but once that is done it works well enough to get the job done. As for whether it really deserves to be called an overpriced "POS", one must consider the alternatives, which certainly cost more, take far longer, and probably entail the expensive shipping to and from an expensive "service" of unknown reliability.
I’m trying to be constructive here, Mr. Presenter. I know you are retired, and so am I. I’m not going to be critical as to the quality of your video images as I’m not sure I could do better. Understand that after watching the first 10-15 minutes, I gave up. Why? You said at the very beginning this presentation would be "brief," and I know you subsequently annotated this comment that it wasn’t. Yep, at over 1 hour and 15 minutes, SOMETHING (or someone,) should have informed you that this isn’t bad … for a FIRST DRAFT! You need to critically review your "dissertation," second by second, in order to eliminate information that is thoroughly irrelevant, e.g. your family’s slide collection, other than specific types of slides, e.g. those formatted using your mother’s Pentax camera. Understand that no one is interested in your discussion about your family’s Argus slides other than whether they can be scanned by this product. Who needs to see those empty Argus boxes. You do make a number of good points, but if you truly want people who buy or are trying out this scanner, you’ve really got to "tighten up" your words. I suggest that your digression into using Corel be put into a part 2. The time spent on it here is a waste for those of us trying to get to the meat of your discussion. I’m a Mac user, for instance, and I don’t care to listen to a discussion about some software here that’s not essential to running this scanner. I hope I’m not being too brutal. I was a Diagnostic Radiologist, mostly in a teaching program, so I was quite comfortable lecturing on a number of topics using two slide projectors simultaneously. I think you share at least one feature with me: giving as much information as possible. However, if such information is not presented in a cohesive fashion, then "more" is not necessarily better. Good luck!
David C, I don't "need" to do anything differently. I make videos like this to help others. I don't get any compensation from anybody for putting these videos up. I am not monetized. I don't have any interest in whether anyone buys this kind of scanner or not. I wanted this video to be brief, but that is a relative term. On the fly, I decided to go into more detail, and also wanted to explain my reasons for doing things the way I did. That kind of detail might be very useful to some viewers, boring and useless to others. So far, I have had more viewers thanking me for my efforts, with few complaints. So once again, I have no stake in this......I made it the way I did, and I care not a jot whether any individual viewer likes it or not.
Thank you for making this video - it was very helpful. I was looking for answers to questions about the software that the manual didn't explain and learned not only those things, but more that I didn't know that I should be aware of. To the person who complained about the video being too long: you can see the length of a TH-cam video before you start it - if it is too long for you, you don't have to watch it.
This is an EXCELLENT presentation and demonstration. You have answered the many questions I have about the scanner itself and the detailed workflow. Thank you! I have been researching how to scan 1000s of family slides and your detailed walk-through of this machine has helped me decide in favor of this scanner!
I agree word for word. I was truly lost and you presentation was complete. Consider yourself hugged by some one special in your life from me. ;-). Thank you again.
Interesting presentation. I loved seeing the photos of your family from the past. Those Tupperware tumblers!
What a coincidence that I've been watching your train odyssey videos and ended up here after ordering this scanner and looking for video guides. I inherited about 2000 slides from my grandfather and after doing some research I found out that purchasing this machine is cheaper than using a professional digitizing service, even though I had it shipped from the states to Europe. Plus I get to learn something new in the process.
The final scan in the sequence takes a lot of time even with MagicTouch off. I recently scanned a full tray and it took about two and a half hours at 2500 DPI. I believe the first two passes on every slide are pre-scans even though you won't see the previews when using the Multiscan option.
Something I'd like to add - and this is briefly mentioned in the manual - is that apparently you may get better results by inserting the slides so that the emulsion side (the less shiny side, with film manufacturer markings) is facing the end of the tray. I've found that I get better colors this way but the scanned images are horizontally mirrored and I need to manually flip them all afterwards. I use Darktable for post-processing and organizing and luckily it's pretty easy to edit whole batches.
Many thanks for the video. I have one coming, and this really was very informative. I will stick to using your settings for resolution and JPEG compression.
I just finished a 4000 slide project using this exact same scanner. It was well worth the effort at the end of day to to have all my father's slides available online. The reviews scared me that I'd get tons of jams, but I only got one misfeed in the 4000 slides. Also chose 2500 dpi. I found that higher made the process too slow, and the quality difference was negligible. I'm finding that owning this thing is kind of like owning a pickup truck. You get asked to scan people's slides, just like getting asked to help move :)
I'll do plastic mounted slides for free but I charge for old cardboard.
Thank you. Well explained !
Can you buy extra magazines for the unit? So you can load the next while one is processing?
Chris McGee, yes you can. I think I said so in the video somewhere. Supposedly, it also works with some similar magazines used on some old slide projectors.
Has anyone had an issue with the PowerslideX cutting off the image area unevenly / cropping the slides? If so any solutions? Thanks :)
I affixed typed-caption stickers to the wide side of each mounted 35mm slide. Can the Pacific Image "PowerSlide X" scan the *ENTIRE* 2X2-inch mounted slide so the captions are readable?
cnlicnli, you seem to misunderstand the entire optics of slides. By their nature, they require light to pass through them in order to be viewed/scanned. But you want to scan the surface of their frames, which is a very different way of working, optically. No, this scanner will not read text written on the surfaces of the slide frames.
I purchased this scanner about a year ago. To me, it is hands down the best bulk slide scanner out there and essential if you have thousands of slides to digitize. That being said, the documentation you receive with this scanner is absolutely horrible and the driver/software interface is clunky at best. I also had to contact them because I couldn't even get the drivers to download as showed in your video. Once you get the process down, it's fairly easy to scan your collection.
Just wanted to add I accidentally figured out how to do batches without rebooting the user manufacturer's instructions didn't work very well for me... So here is the secret before you turn the machine on make sure the slide tray is loaded and butted up against the pusher arm...Turn the machine on....wait 1.5minutes for calibration to end and green light solid....Open Cyberview...Click reload magazine icon in Cyberview....then run your multiscan...
Scan job finishes...Reload your tray butted up to pusher arm....Click reload magazine icon...run your multiscan...repeat... Prior to this I would have to reboot every time both PC and Powerslide X cause something would freeze the app.
Gabriel Olar, I think I covered these points, one way or another, in this video. But you are correct.
And the instructions tell none of this. I learned this stuff by emailing and talking to Pacific Images's tech support agent in the States.
"Won't be too long" proceeds to give detailed instructions on every aspect of the scanner for an hour and a quarter.
Many users say this device jambs up all the time. Have you ever had this problem?
@@myronachtman4304 , I talked about this in the video. I had essentially no issues with jamming. I also made some suggestions for how to avoid jamming.
I think it's slower because of the dpi res
Robert Jensen, slower than what? If you mean that scanners are slower in general when asked to scan images at higher resolution, uh, yes, they certainly are.
8-bit color depth in RGB provides a full palette of 16.7 million colors, NOT 256 colors.
Olympus Pen ‘Half Frame’ camera
8bit colour: 256Red + 256Green + 256Blue = 16.8 million colours!
this unit is a POS. Sure you can learn how to use it as described in this video...we did. It still sucks. I purchased it for professional/large volume scanning work. It lasted for a few hundred (50 slide tray). IT has a lot of mechanical gremlins and a lot of software driver problems. THe software is so dated most modern operating systems will not let you open it without overriding in security settings. Many people encounter a "calibration data error" problem at some point in its life...where it stops auto cropping. At that point it's basically done. It's not worth the money.
Johngoodell, you appear to be rating this product based solely on your own disappointing experience. And yet, a great many people have successfully used this product to scan huge collections of old slides with few, if any, glitches. Certainly it is unusual to have the product fail after only 50 trays.
You did not say if you tried contacting the manufacturer for repair, etc. From your comment, I have to assume that you did not try that avenue.
This product definitely suffers from outdated and clunky software which can be problematic to download and install without a primer such as my video, but once that is done it works well enough to get the job done.
As for whether it really deserves to be called an overpriced "POS", one must consider the alternatives, which certainly cost more, take far longer, and probably entail the expensive shipping to and from an expensive "service" of unknown reliability.
I’m trying to be constructive here, Mr. Presenter. I know you are retired, and so am I. I’m not going to be critical as to the quality of your video images as I’m not sure I could do better. Understand that after watching the first 10-15 minutes, I gave up.
Why? You said at the very beginning this presentation would be "brief," and I know you subsequently annotated this comment that it wasn’t. Yep, at over 1 hour and 15 minutes, SOMETHING (or someone,) should have informed you that this isn’t bad … for a FIRST DRAFT!
You need to critically review your "dissertation," second by second, in order to eliminate information that is thoroughly irrelevant, e.g. your family’s slide collection, other than specific types of slides, e.g. those formatted using your mother’s Pentax camera. Understand that no one is interested in your discussion about your family’s Argus slides other than whether they can be scanned by this product. Who needs to see those empty Argus boxes.
You do make a number of good points, but if you truly want people who buy or are trying out this scanner, you’ve really got to "tighten up" your words.
I suggest that your digression into using Corel be put into a part 2. The time spent on it here is a waste for those of us trying to get to the meat of your discussion. I’m a Mac user, for instance, and I don’t care to listen to a discussion about some software here that’s not essential to running this scanner.
I hope I’m not being too brutal. I was a Diagnostic Radiologist, mostly in a teaching program, so I was quite comfortable lecturing on a number of topics using two slide projectors simultaneously. I think you share at least one feature with me: giving as much information as possible. However, if such information is not presented in a cohesive fashion, then "more" is not necessarily better.
Good luck!
David C, I don't "need" to do anything differently. I make videos like this to help others. I don't get any compensation from anybody for putting these videos up. I am not monetized. I don't have any interest in whether anyone buys this kind of scanner or not.
I wanted this video to be brief, but that is a relative term. On the fly, I decided to go into more detail, and also wanted to explain my reasons for doing things the way I did. That kind of detail might be very useful to some viewers, boring and useless to others.
So far, I have had more viewers thanking me for my efforts, with few complaints. So once again, I have no stake in this......I made it the way I did, and I care not a jot whether any individual viewer likes it or not.