Print Facebook Photos at Target Through Kodak Picture Kiosks -- But at What Resolution?

Users looking to make physical copies of their Facebook photos can now print them at Kodak Picture Kiosks at Target retail stores. The kiosks are now equipped with "Social Network Connectivity", allowing users to log in to their Facebook accounts and select photos to print instead of bringing their digital camera, USB flash drive, or memory card. Users should be aware that until September 2010 when Facebook began allowing high resolution photo uploads, all photos were resized to either 604 or 720 pixels on the largest side, meaning photos printed at larger than 3 or 4 inches on the largest size will look grainy. Kodak previously announced that Facebook and Picasa photo printing would be coming to Target and CVS. Meanwhile, Target recently began selling gift cards which are redeemable for Facebook Credits, though we've received some reports that the Credits are not properly being deposited in users' accounts. The Kodak Picture Kiosks can create products including photo books, calendars, greeting cards, collages or picture movie DVDs, and printing from Facebook doesn't cost extra. The price for printing standard 4 x 6 inch photos in seconds is $0.29 per print regardless of quantity, or $0.25 per print for 1-30 prints, $0.20 for 31-99 prints, and $0.15 for 100 or more prints that are ready in one hour. Users can find the kiosks at most Target stores. Target SVP of merchandising Mark Schindele says that Social Network Connectivity will give customers "the convenience of printing [Facebook photos] during their regular Target shopping trip." Since users won't have to plan on printing photos, but can instead be enticed on the spot, in-store placement and the ability of the kiosks to convey the new functionality will have a significant effect on sales. There's currently no word on whether Kodak plans to enable use of photos from other social networks or photo sharing sites such as MySpace or Flickr. The press release also makes no mention of privacy or security precautions the kiosks will take to protect users. Kodak Picture Kiosks could be a good use case for Facebook's new One-Time Passwords, which offer enhanced security while logging on to Facebook using public machines. While Facebook recently introduced high resolution photo uploading and downloading, the majority of the photos on the site are compressed to sizes which look alright online but are not fit for full-size photo printing. As more services allow users to print or manipulate their photos, users may request that Facebook provide a tool for replacing their degraded, existing Facebook photos with high resolution versions from their hard drives.

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Print Facebook Photos at Target Through Kodak Picture Kiosks -- But at What Resolution?

Josh Constine

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