Pacific Image PS5000 PowerSlide 5000 CCD Slides Scanner with 5000dpi, USB 2.0 Connectivity

2018-02-14T08:50:25

I reviewed several scanners for digitizing all of my slides and decided on the Powerslide 5000 based on prior reviews and now my experience with the unit. It produces good output results with most slides however it does have issues with some slides that had low level lighting. Overall the output quality of the slides are satisfactory. The unit has some quirks with the slide tray provided and the way the arm pushes the slides into the processing area of the scanner. I average 1 to 4 slides per 50 slides that have to be rescanned because they were not totally pushed into the scanner or the scanner could not read the slide properly. I have read other reviews that recommend the carousel type of slide trays, but right now I am only processing slides that I would use for shows or to sell once printed. I do not use the editing software in the package since I correct everything with Photoshop. I do like the dust removing software, which is about the only part of the software that I use. For the price, which I got on sale with Adorama, I am happy with the purchase.

RICH S.

2017-09-06T12:15:24

Bought this and the software was not useable with this device. Manual was in a foreign language. Support was non existant. Both over 5 years ago.

JOHN B.

2017-07-11T13:09:25

This unit seems to be working well. It took some tweaking and I found (at least on my unit) that slot #3 in the tray always jams. I just start my slides in slot 4 or 5 and I can get through a whole tray. I also found the software a bit lacking and agree with a previous reviewer, get VUESCAN. It works well with this unit and has some pre-processing.

James R.

2015-01-20T19:00:00

I scanned about one thousand old slides. took less than a week, I thought it would be all winter. Instruction manual useless...They might as well include: Tips for Hassle Free Scanning... I wrote a paper on organizing and loading/setting-up the slides, as this was the hardest part. Had a few jams mostly all in number one slot in tray??? Machine sounds awful when scanning (wonder how long it will last)??? I scanned everything in 2500dpi JPG as I wanted the digital images to be around 2MEG each when compressed. So nice to look at the pictures on my large screen HDTV they look far better than when "Projected"....

sagegray

2013-11-18T19:00:00

Once set up and running ... does a great little job. A tad slow ... but then so am I :) Can be a little ornery during software setup, but all can be overcome. For the price, a SUPER DEAL! Back to scanning ... Bye for now.

JOSEPH R.

2013-07-19T21:00:00

I've scanned so far about 800 of my Dad's old slides, with maybe 2000 to go. The results look great, and the only jams I've had have been with some old, thick cardboard mounts from the 1950's. The only minuses involved the length of time required to learn the best way to set up a tray to scan.

ELLIS B.

2012-01-20T19:00:00

I scan slides and photos as part of my business, and have been looking for a high quality slide scanner that could batch up slides. I currently use an Epson 700 scanner and it does 12 slides at a time. Roughly 30 seconds per slide. I have an extra slide holder, so I can keep the machine pretty busy by pre-loading a tray while the other is being scanned. I tried the powerslide5000 with a set of 90 slides. I'd read the horror stories of slides getting jammed, but I didn't have that problem at all. The universal holder is useless. Slides bounce all over the place. I used the white paximat holder and it was great (Tech support says that the black one is not good - the spaces for slides are too narrow). The powerslide misses a slide occasionally, so you get a blank image in your collection. Annoying but not the end of the world. I compared color and dust between my existing flatbed scanner and the powerslide5000. Slides were scanned at ~2400 dpi and 16-bit color. I don't use the color adjustment in any scanner s/w. I scan the images and do all contrast, color, and tone adjustment in Photoshop. When comparing the final images side-by-side, I generally preferred the Epson. Colors were better and images were sharper. In both cases, dust removal was switched off on the scanner, but much more dust showed up on the powerslide5000 slides. Odd. I did try the dust removal option in the powerslide5000, but my set of slides contained quite a few trees, and the artifacts introduced by the dust-removal s/w made the slides unusable. Whole sections of the slide were grayed/smeared. Otherwise the dust reduction worked fine. I need to process a large number of slides, and don't have the time to be re-doing a slide, especially if the order of scanning is important. If you are scanning slides for personal reasons and don't mind having to re-scan some slides, then I'd say the dust-removal option is a good one to use. Being able to load 50 slides and go away is a nice feature that I can't find anywhere else. But at 2 - 3 mins per slide (at 2500 dpi), its a long wait. I can do 200 slides on my other scanner in the same time period. More babysitting is needed though. In conclusion, its a good scanner. Nice to be able to batch up 50 slides. I saw no jamming when using the paximat holder. But looking at time needed to scan, and looking at the quality of the final images, I'd say the powerslide just isn't worth the extra $$

GEORGE S.

2011-12-04T19:00:00

Instruction manual almost useless. I would recommend this only to someone who is also mechanically adept.

2011-09-11T21:00:00

I have a huge collection of slides to archive, 20K-25K. I needed an automated system for the scanning. Bought the PS5000 as it seemed the most cost effective system at the time. The alternatives such as the Braun Multi-Mag are more expensive but are the SAME machine! This is a great machine for what it is designed to do. Scan speeds are good but are dependant on your dpi setting. Resolution is superb but remember how big your images will be. 5000 dpi at 16 bit depths generates HUGE images (240mb?). You'll need more drive space. I have settled on 2400 dpi at 16bit as a happy medium for speed and resolution. I do all colour correction in the Gimp as a post process. I have scanned over 2000 slides to date and the machine works well. My only issues have involved old cardboard mounts (pre 1972) that come apart after scanning. The included Paximat magazine has sharp 2mm slots which seem to catch the edges of these mounts, spreading the cardboard and jamming. Removal of one jammed slide is easy but I had 3 slides get stacked up inside somehow. This required me to take the cover off, voiding my warranty. They need to improve the system for clearing jams. If you're dealing with glass or metal mounts, you need to buy a magazine with 3.2mm slots. This would also work for those old cardboard mounts. If you have lots of slides to scan, this is your machine.

Patrick R.