#Working through a tray

Slide Station is built to be driven from the keyboard, so a tray of 36 slides takes minutes, not an evening.

#Importing

Plug in the scanner in USB mode and press Import, or drop a folder of scans on the window. You can also start a tray from a folder on your Mac (New tray → A folder on this Mac).

A new tray has:

• A name, which is also its Immich album. To put every tray in one album instead, choose that album under Settings → Immich album.
• A date, optional: 1985, 1985-07 or 1985-07-14. It goes into the photos' EXIF so Immich shows them in the right year. Slides get one-minute steps, so they stay in tray order.

On import, Slide Station:

• Groups repeated scans of the same slide at different brightness and blends them into one photo with more detail in the highlights and shadows.
• Turns slides upright, guessing from faces and skies. A slide it isn't sure about is left alone.
• Straightens slides that sat crooked in their mount, when it's sure. Otherwise the Frame section says how far the mount is turned and offers Straighten to mount.
• Restores faded colour automatically, and learns from your corrections, so later slides start closer to how you like them.

#Reviewing

The review grid (G) is for the quick "all good" pass: arrows move, Space marks a slide good and moves on, X skips, R turns, Enter opens the slide.

Slides you've marked good are rendered at full resolution in the background, so uploading is quick.

#Fixing colour and damage

The Adjust panel has exposure, contrast, colour and tone curves. The Restore section has three extra tools, all off by default:

• Dust removes specks and thin scratches. Turn it up until they're gone; it leaves texture and fine detail alone.
• Mould paints out fungus that has grown on the film: pale or dark blotches and branching threads. It can mistake a lone bird or a small scribble for mould, so check those slides.
• Newton rings evens out the faint rainbow rings where the film touched the mount's glass. It can soften fine stripes in the picture, like corduroy or ripples.

Presets (the bookmark icon in Adjust, or ⌘K) save a slide's colour under a name, to apply to one slide or the rest of the tray. Develop like… copies the colour of any slide in any tray. Crop and straightening are never copied.

#Local adjustments

To fix one part of a slide, open the Local section or press A:

• A graduated filter brings a blown-out sky back, starting from the edge you drag from.
• A radial brightens a dark subject inside an ellipse or, inverted, darkens around it like a vignette.
• A brush paints the adjustment exactly where you want it. Erase takes paint away.

Each one has its own exposure, contrast, warmth, tint and saturation. Drag the handles on the photo to shape it. O shows the mask in red, ⌫ deletes the selected one and Esc closes the tool. Local adjustments belong to their slide: copying colour or applying presets never copies them.

#Uploading and cleaning the card

Upload to Immich sends the finished slides to the tray's album. Photos Immich already has are not sent again.

Changing a slide after it's uploaded marks it edited. The next upload replaces the old copy in Immich: the old one goes to Immich's trash, and its albums and favourite carry over. A new date or caption alone is changed in Immich directly, without uploading the photo again.

Clean scanner card becomes available once every slide is uploaded or skipped. It only deletes scans that still match the copies in your library. Then eject the scanner.

#Keeping track

Stats (the chart icon in the top bar) shows slides per hour, trays left and when you'll be done at this pace. The target is 10,000 slides until you change it.

Suggest a change to this page