ION Audio Pics2SD Multiformat Slide and Photo Film Scanner to SD Card

HAVING DELAYED MY DECISION TO PURCHASE, TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY, WAS THE MACHINE ALL THAT IT WAS MADE OUT TO BE, "DOES IT ACUALLY DO WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN" - I AM REALLY PLEASED AND IMPRESSED BY THE RESULTS OF MY WEDDING SLIDES - PERUTZ 1965 ERA - THEY CAME OUT REALLY CLEAR AND UNFADED. I NOW HAVE A SET OF SUPERB WEDDING SLIDES TO LOOK AT ON MY COMPUTER, RATHER THAN THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY OF DIGGING OUT THE SLIDE PROJECTOR AND THE INEVITABLE SETTING UP AND DISMANTLING OF THAT EQUIPMENT. I AM WELL IMPRESSED BY THE RESULTS OF THE ION MULTIFORMAT SLIDE AND PHOTO SCANNER (ALTHOUGH, NOT A SCANNER BUT A MINI-CAMERA) BUT WITH FIRST CLASS RESULTS FROM SLIDES, NEGATIVES AND PHOTOGRAPHS. I WOULD TRULY RECOMMEND THE PURCHASE OF THIS MACHINE IF YOU HAVE LOADS OF OLD PHOTOS, SLIDES AND NEGATIVES WHICH YOU WOULD LIKE TO BRING BACK TO LIFE. I AM NOW LOOKING FORWARD TO DIGGING FURTHER INTO MY ARCHIVES AND REVIVING MANY MEMORIES. IF YOU ARE "THINKING ABOUT BUYING ONE" - STOP THINKING, ITS WELL WORTH THE MONEY. HOWEVER, ONE PAIN TO BEAR. THE SLIDE / NEGATIVE PLASTIC HOLDERS LEAVE MUCH TO BE DESIRED. ONLY 3 SLIDES ON ONE HOLDER OR 6 NEGATIVES AND SINGLE PHOTOS PER OPERATION. THE MAKERS MUST COME UP WITH BETTER SLIDE HOLDERS - OPENING THEM TO CHANGE OVER SLIDES / NEGATIVES IS SLOW AND FIDDLY - ESPECIALLY WHEN THE SLIDE HOLDERS SIMPLY REFUSE TO OPEN! BUT THE WINTER DAYS / NIGHTS WILL BE WELL SPENT THIS YEAR. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Giving this 3 stars, because, it is okay. No more. It has just been released from amazon whilst being checked from a customer complaint. It seems to be the norm for some of these products! Anyhow, got this delivered today and have tried it to drop a review in. I have scanned some prints, old and new and some negatives, not tried slides yet. Firstly I have to say I have an agfa scanner also of a similar ilk I was hoping this would be better. In some respects it is, it is a higher resolution and there are controls on the unit for selecting B&W and cropping etc, the cropping is for selecting the 3 different print holders. The menu is not very intuitive, but you get used to it. Pros; its quite fast to use, get a pile of prints, divide them into size and B&W or colour and the only thing slowing you down is its a little slow getting the prints into the holders, its mainly because of the corners of the print. But it fast enough, 2 button presses and your image is scanned onto the SD card. Negatives and slides are as easy once you get used to positioning them and the scans from negs are ok. Cons; as a previous person mentioned you do get a light shadow on prints more so on darker images, it is the reflection of the light source around the camera, no, its not a scanner, it is a box with a camera in, so there are some LED's illuminating your prints, light shows through negs so not a problem. IF you want to digitise some old prints or you want to digitise some prints for general viewing its fine, but if you want to produce fine files to print bigger etc, its not so good, I doubt you could get rid of this effect easily, it is noticeable but not terrible, like i said, if you want to cheaply digitise your prints from the 1960's for keeping and viewing on a PC or Mac for friends and family stick one or two on FB then its fine. I didnt get a cleaning tool? You dont need to use it with a PC but you can without a card, but with a card you can sit anywhere and feed it prints and negs all day, then later get them on your computer. There is one BIG negative for me, the exif data saved with the photo is set at september 1st 2010, so after I downloaded my first scans into iPhoto on the iMac I couldn't find the pics amongst my 10000 pics, but eventually found them when i realised this in september of that year. This is disappointing and a shame you cant set any date on the unit. I am going to keep this and use it, because its, OKAY, no more no less. I find that scanned prints or negs from devices like this have a certain harsh effect at the same time appearing soft, considering negs are as high in resolution as a 24Mega pixel camera, they dont look so from scans with these devices. One last thing to remember is that it was supplied with a euro power adapter, i think it would fit in a shaver adapter, but I dont use mine I use one of the alternative power sources you can get from here, it runs on USB power anyhow. Update, May 2015. I guess the file date issue applies to anyone on macs and pc's, however I found an app to change the file creation dates so I batch change them. I have discovered another fault with this unit, I scanned about 5 rolls of film and was discovering on quite a few what appears to be fogging on the left hand corners, I was seriously thinking this was one of my 3 film cameras I use. Then when I inspected closer, some Ektar film i took thinking it couldnt be that bad, I reinserted it into the scanner and realised the scanner is actually creating som e highlight areas top and bottom on the left if there are any dark areas. Its totally un useable as a tool for creating decent files, but all you can do is use it to scan your negs to view them, only and catalogue them, if you want a scanner for creating proper digital files to crop or print from , it aint this unit...

The ION Pics2 SD does what it does very well, but it's NOT a scanner. What it is, is a 5 megapixel fixed focal length camera (interpolated to 10 megapixels) in a very pleasantly designed black box with a built-in LCD screen and SD card reader. What this box of tricks does is take a digital photograph of your prints, slides and/or negatives - making your 'negative' a 'positive' in order to capture the image for the latter. To be fair NONE of these stand-alone boxes are scanners, so the Pics2 SD is no different to any of the others in that respect. What it is though, is quite a lot better than any similar offerings I've tried from the likes of Agfa, Plustek, Veho and Zennox. So, the good points then; My order was fulfilled by Amazon UK so as ever, the ordering process and (free supersaver) delivery were excellent - less than 72 hours to an offshore Island! Out of the box the Pics2 SD looks very stylish and well made (compared to similar items on the market these days). It's blissfully simple to start using with an instruction manual just 5 pages long including the Troubleshooting section. There's also a big note inside from ION with a UK phone number if you have any problems - nice touch. Someone recently commented that the picture and slide trays seemed 'flimsy'. To be fair they have to be made out of plastic in order to keep everything nice and mobile, and they're screwed together where possible rather than glued. I'd actually go as far as to say they're as well made as they can be, and better than many others. The fairly huge benefits of the ION Pics2 SD over it's cheaper sibling (the Pics2 PC) are that this one has an SD card slot, so you don't have to be connected to a computer to start 'scanning' your old prints and slides etc. Also the SD model has a decent sized LCD screen so you can see what you've scanned instantly, and delete, save or retake images as you choose there and then. Again as with any of these analogue to digital 'magic' image boxes, it would be totally unrealistic to accept the initial output as anything worth archiving, unless you're ridiculously easy to please. So you have to use a software package to clean the inital results up. Using the 'Fade Correction' button on the software I use, is enough to give me a very good/fresh looking image from a 35mm slide taken back in 1964. I've used my ION Pics2 SD for 'scanning' all three formats now, i.e. prints, slides and negatives, and I'm genuinely very pleased with the outcome of all three, after a 10 second clean up job with the imaging software I've always used. Bad points; Of course it would be great if someone manufactured a similar box of tricks that transferred analogue prints and slides to digital, without having to use software to clean the results up a bit. But the fact is that technology simply isn't around. Frankly the same goes for high end flatbed scanners as far as I'm concerned. It would be nice given the price difference between the Pics2 SD and Pics2 PC (about GBP30) if the former was shipped with a 2GB SD card in the box. That way you really could start cataloguing hundreds of your family memories straight out of the box. For a company like ION, that would cost no more than 20p extra for each one they sold. So would I recommend the ION Pics2 SD over the Pics2 PC? Definitely. Would I recommend the ION Pics2 SD above any similar offerings currently on the market? Absolutely. I know you can buy other machines that do a similar job for less money, but this one is better put together in my opinion, it does a better job, and it's without doubt an easy, quick and very simple way to (finally) get rid of all those shoe boxes filled with pictures, negatives and slides from way back when. It's still not a scanner though!

Worked straight out of the box.I also purchased a 2 pack Scandisk SDHC cards with the package but not required if you connect straight to a PC.The built in memory is handy but once the full capacity is reached,pictures can be transferred instantaneously to you Photo Software and edit at source.Various exposures are made available prior to scan and save the image,but I did not bother with these as it is better through the photo software.Images are captured exceptionally fast in whatever mode you select. The slide and film holders do a perfect job of holding the negatives or slides.A maximum of 6 negatives can be loaded and 4 maximum slides. The negatives film holder incorporates small "teeth" to hold the strip of film and the slides holder incorporates a small magnet to keep it closed and although they look fragile they should last a lifetime if treated gently. The photo holders come in 3 different sizes,however I found that my collection is mid 1960 and measurements of my photos are a shade too large to fit in their respective holders.Initially I had to trim photos to fit but after a while I used the next size up.Photos were held in the holder by double sided tape and the top edge of the original photo inserted under the top of the holder bar,failure to do this will result in the photo jamming inside and possible tearing of your photo when you try to pull out the holder from the ION Pics slot. Incidentally in my opinion a photo editor software is required as the end result of using the photo holders will also show on the captured image and each one have to be cropped to obtain a more professional presentation. I found the ION Pics 2 SD an ideal converter to digitalis your cherished collection and do recommend it to a friend,however,once you finished with it your best option is to sell it as I doubt if you will be using it again considering that modern day photography is in a digital format already.

Pretty much a plug and play machine. I have bought it to digitalise my old slide collection. As others have said . it is not a scanner and the resulting files are very small (ca 500KB) so they do not do well on full screen and quickly pixellate. Surprised that the resolution is SO poor - not what is indicated in the blurb about it. My slide collection is framed in cardboard, plastic without glass and plastic with glass protection. The latter do NOT fit in the slides cassette and so if I want to "scan" these in, I will have to reframe them which would be a very long and tedious job. So far I find that some "scans" are really good and others are fuzzy and so far I can't work out why. I have tried turning the slide around in the holder, but that makes no difference. I may try taking them out of the frames and using the negative holder. It is quick to use (much quicker than using a real scanner) but I fear the slide holder will not last very long as it is a fiddle to open and I feel the hinges are not very robust. I am going to compare these slides when "scanned" with how each of them are when projected onto a screen. Some of the really old slides have got a lot of colour fading and it is possible to tweak this in e.g. photoshop. .... Follwing yet another evening trying to recapture old slides I now pronounce this equipment useless. I shall try and return it.

I bought this for scanning the thousands of prints I have so that I can create photo books with Blurb rather than having dozens of fully stuffed photo albums which take up so much room. For that I need top quality scans. The idea that I could scan the photos away from the computer meant that I could probably get the job done more quickly and that's what attracted me to the ION. This unit certainly allows that and is easy and convenient to use but it really is no use if it does not produce acceptable scans and this doesn't, not by a long way. If you want to just digitise all your snaps and just look at them on the computer I guess you might find this okay but if you have any intention of reprinting them in any format then look elsewhere. The major problem is the amount of noise on scanned photos, it is simply appalling. Straight from the unit the quality is awful and each scan requires a considerable amount of work with image processing software (I use Lightroom) to get anything remotely acceptable. You need to crank up the colour noise reduction to almost 100% and the luminance noise reduction to over 50% but then of course you start to lose most of the detail and sharpness. All the convenience of scanning quickly goes out of the window when you have to spend fives times as long as it takes to scan in fixing the scan. You can make some adjustments at the scanning stage but the preview screen is far to small to see the effects and, again, if you have to fiddle about with every scan the speed and convenience goes out of the window. At the same time I bought an Epson PX720WD multi- function printer for around £[] to use as a general scanner and handy printer for the odd 6"x4" or 7"x5" print. I didn't think it would be good enough for scanning prints but it beats the ION scanner hands down, In fact it is TEN TIMES better! I can scan a print with the Epson and after minimal work in Lightroom print back to the printer and get a print which is actually BETTER than the original. Who would have thought that for a cheap printer? The ION has gone back and I'll be buying a proper Epson scanner instead (I also have thousands of slides to scan which the cheap Epson can't cope with). In conclusion buy this if you want a quick way to digitise your prints but you are not concerned with the quality. If you want quality results and don't mind a little extra time in scanning go for an Epson multi-function printer and save yourself £70. Better still fork out an extra £20 and go for a proper scanner ... the Epson Perfection V500 will handle slides, negs and prints and if the quality is anything like the cheap multi-function (and it should be much better) then you'll not regret the extra expenditure. If you DO go for the ION then don't throw your prints away because one day you'll realise just how bad your scans are and you'll want to do them all again properly.

Having received the Ion Pics 2 SD I'm quite pleased with it and I believe it's more of a 'Macro camera' than a scanner. If you are happy with what you have, read no further. There are 2 versions, PC & SD which is stand alone but will connect to a PC. Mine is the SD version and I bought an SD card, both from Amazon. The files were scanned at default but could have be adjusted prior to remove the colour 'haze'. The most impressive being the dust and scratch removal which I did not adjust for. The slides are slightly clipped. You can move the holder slightly to adjust alignment. Negative strips are a little fiddly to position, it seems suppliers have bought the same negative holder from same source. Some may have light reflection in glossy photo's but it can be removed or reduced greatly. If you scan photo's that do not fit into the holders as they are smaller beware that they are very likely to fall out when loaded. To remove, tilt scanner forward, slide a plastic ruler carefully into slot, tilt scanner backwards, slide another ruler in on front side of photo, squeeze together and carefully guide out. Would recommend that if you lay scanner backwards and slide the photo holder in with the smaller photo positioned in two of the 3 side slots, it should stay laying flat and you will be able to scan it and remove it.

First off i think the product and the whole concept of a photo and negative scanner is genious. I have hundreds of negative and photos that have sat in draws gathering dust and the pis to sd scanner has helped me to make them in to digital copies so that my parents, brothers, and even my children can enjoy looking at them for years to come. The scanner is well made and well designed and very easy to use i think there are a few things that could be better like saving them straight to the pc instead of to an sd card or the small internal memory but but all in all this is not a major problem. The slides are very easy to use with the negatives but i have found that many of my oldist photos cant be transfered due to the lack of a slide for the 110mm size negatives i have asked about thes and was told to use the 35mm slide but this is a bit beyond me as the negative is far to small and just falls through the middle. for scanning photos they have provided little frames that you slip the pictures in to and then slot them in to the machine its great and the photos come out just as they should do. All in All a great bit of kit to save all your old photos and negatives to your computer.

Ottimo oggetto che unisce una qualità più che accettabile a livello amatoriale ad un buon prezzo. L'utilizzo è semplice e le funzioni incorporate efficaci per il raggiungimento di un buon risultato

... da mein vater meine ganzen Bilder meiner Kindheit alle auf DIAs hat, habe ich eine lösung gesucht und bei euch gefunden die DIAS perfekt umwandeln zu können ...

Works great but it takes a long time to insert scan and reject slides. It did capture my slides very good. I scanned 800 slides. Good product.

Cet appareil est conforme aux performances annoncées. Je suis entièrement satisfaite de mon achat et je le recommande à tous ceux qui recherche la simplicité l'efficacité et la rapidité malgré une toute petite manipulation à faire avec les originaux pour les glisser dans le support adapté. Mais c'est de la technique pas de la maggie ! L'esthétique et la fonctionnalité sont au rendez-vous. Bravo pour cet appareil parfaitement abouti. Une suggestion toutefois : pour les nouveaux modèles à venir : un écran tactile serait un plus très appréciable !

I purchased for ease of sharing after scanning to SD card, initially worked fine. However on its second use it failed to see the SD card. I tried reformatting, different cards, then googled to find this is a common issue. You are forced to save scans to the devices memory, which is full after scanning 8 film negatives, then transfer via usb to computer. A long and tedious process when trying to archive a batch of negatives, especially as each new set of 8 files has same file names as previous set and needs to be renamed before saving. Do your research, avoid.