Words from a retailer....
Written: Nov 21 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fast, High Quality, Great for Presents
Cons: Can get expensive
The Bottom Line: It's a great machine, but it's only as good as the people who care for it and the pictures you put in it.
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| pockypimp's Full Review: Kodak PictureMaker Kiosk Printer |
Hi, I work at a Kinko's that has one of the big yellow Kodak kiosks in it and I'm going to write the review from the point of the retailer, because for just about every con I've seen thus far there's been simple explanations that aren't to be blamed on the machine.
The machine does wonderful work from both disk, all the little memory cards from digital cameras and from actual photos. Yes, contrary to what a lot of people have said thus far, the photo reproduction is top notch, sometimes better than the original. We've had the machine in place for about a year and a half now, it's gone through about 2 software upgrades since then and the crashing problem has been reduced greatly (Think Windows95 vs Windows98). This is a high quality machine, the dye sublimation printer that's inside prints out photos that are far superior to the color photocopies off of our Xerox/Cannon copiers, with the added bonus of having a better type of gloss paper inside.
The key is that the machine has to be kept in good condition. We have a drug store across the street from us with the same machine, giving the same lousy quality that all the others have been complaining about. The key to the machine is that it has to keep a certain level of maintenance, the internal cartridges need to be replaced regularly and the paper feed tray needs to be inserted properly. The glass for the scanner needs to be kept clean and scratch free, the problem is 90% of the time a previous person has wiped the glass with their hands and smeared the oil from their skin onto the glass, or they've had rings that has left scratches in the glass. And as another review stated, your photo original quality is important to the end result. If your original photo isn't very good, you of course won't get professional results back. The machine is good, but it can't perform miracles. Don't expect perfect enlargements of one person that's 1"x1" to an 8x10".
As far as gifts go, the machine has built in frames and calendars. An excellent gift idea is to make photo calendars for relatives. Plus the ability to add text on the photos is quite nice. The color correction/brightness correction/red eye reduction isn't as good as say using Adobe Photoshop to color correct your photos, but it does work, but you have to be very careful to eye the picture for the color changes across the board.
So straight from the horse's mouth, this is a good machine, as long as you find one that's in good condition you'll never have any problems.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 6.99
Operating System: Unix
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Epinions.com ID:
pockypimp
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Reviews written: 1
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