Pacific Image Elect PrimeFilm XE 35mm Film & Slide Scanner

I am on Windows 8 64 on a PC I built with 32GB of RAM. The software that comes with the device is as important as the hardware. I give this five stars because the results were worth my money and time to get it working, but beware that it is no easy task. Once I tried Silverfast I was hooked, but unfortunately it was at a cost. It messed up my Adobe CC (Photoshop and Illustrator would not open and give error instead), and it messed up my software synth NI Pro53, adding a large amount of delay and distortion. Sounds bizarre, but the install does something to a windows driver somewhere.I am not pulling this out of my butt, as I isolated the issue doing Windows system restore (good thing my data is stored on secondary hard drives). Both the driver CD alone and the Silverfast software alone have the same effect. Googled for answers, could find nothing that helped. Relied on System Restore for my workflow for a few days, which is insane. Finally I got desperate and installed Oracle Virtual Box along with a trial version of Windows 8.1. Messed with it for a few days. Finally got it to work on the VM.Here is what I did: I rolled back to the time before I installed the scanner driver and Silverfast. I plugged in the scanner, and unfortunately Windows installs its own driver. I uninstalled the driver from "Devices and Printers." It is the first two "HID-Complient device" listed under "ILITEK Properties." I left "USB Input Device" alone. I then set up Virtual Box USB settings for USB 2.0 (EHCI), added a device filter for the device (which can be identified by unplugging and plugging back in), and edited the filter, changing "Remote" drop-down to "Any." (You will need Oracle Extension pack for USB 2.0). I installed the driver and Silverfast on the VM. I select the device in Oracle VM from the menu Devices->USB. The device installs/activates in the VM as a scanner and in the host computer it shows up as "VirtualBox USB". It works great now. Both the scanner and photoshop work. My workflow is to save the scans to a shared folder, which I can open up in Photoshop on the host computer. This took me about a week of troubleshooting to have something operational. I am actually happy with the results.Silverfast is awesome. You can choose the film you used, or if you want to get creative or go for a certain look, you can try others. This is a great tool not just for photographs, but if you are doing graphic art work and need original backgrounds and textures. You can set the exposure settings, contrast, saturation, shadows/midtones/highlights, color cast removal. For some pictures Lightroom/Photoshop may not be needed at all if you are happy with the result (the tar pits picture is straight from Silverfast). I am scanning at max resolution of 10,000 as my system can handle it, even in the VM.This is a white glove operation. Hands and area must be clean, and don't touch the negative with your hands or anything else. Don't even try to clean the negative. Take the negative out of its protector only at the very moment that you are about to insert it into the cartridge. The smallest bit of dust will show up. Also the place where you develop your film must do an excellent job to create good negatives and keep the negatives clean.

A very decent slide scanner. I'd give it another star if the software that came with it were better. The Silverfast software is by far the most feature rich but has a terrible UI that it complicated and in no way intuitive. I've given up and use CyberView X5 (another included software package) that is good at scanning only and then editing/retouching in other software like Lightroom or Photoshop Elements.

Unfortunately this unit failed. I previously had a Pacific Image 7200 that just wore out and finally done in by cat knocking off table. I thought this would be a good replacement as I have much more slides and film to scan. Problems, problems, nothing but problems. Contact with PIE technical support, though good and quick, just could not solve the problems. Tried installing on three different computers, all with the same non-functional results. I'm sad to have to return, but I do want something that functions, not a big paperweight with a blinking light. I do not like having to give a negative review on any item, but with this item, I have no alternative.Update: several days after sending it back I had a thought. I now wonder if it is the software that will not function with Windows 10, though I did a web search for up to date drivers for the software (didn't find any). Perhaps Pacific Image needs to provide up to date software.

This was my second pacific image scanner. The first was a 7200u that produced excellent results but died after 2 weeks.First, the supplied software is useless so I use Vuescan64 which is excellent but costs $80. I ran the same slide many times and finally settled on 4k dpi as a reasonable compromise. At that resolution the results were excellent so I settled in to start scanning my slides.I only made it through two boxes of slides before it died. It would scan 1/3 of a slide and then hang.Pacific Image tech support was no help so I returned the unit to Amazon.I'm not sure what happens next. I have too many slides to consider a scanning service. Looks like I'll have to try something else. I really wish there was a reliable scanner at this price point.

Pacific Image has unbelievable tech support. I have used the PS5000 and loved it, so I decided to try this for the negative scanning. So far I have mixed impression. The unit is very easy to us. It is fairly fast compared to what scanning negatives is rated at. With that said, certain film comes out better than others. I don't think this is the scanner's fault but just the nature of scanning negatives. Some high iso negative film came out very grainy, but other low iso film came out amazing. I don't have another neg scanner to compare to, but overall the unit is easy to use.