Kodak Photo Kiosk

Once upon a time, photo processing took hours--and you had to do it
yourself. Then came 1-hour processing, and now, photos can be printed
instantly. The Kodak Picture Kiosk prints photographs from various
digital sources on demand. My goal was to get a single 5x7 print from
a file on my USB thumb drive.

On approaching the kiosk, the screen displays a video of example
products that the kiosk produces. The only way to interact with the
system is by the touch screen; while the demo is showing, I'm
instructed to "touch the screen to begin". The main menu presents
numerous options, but they are clearly presented, and I had no trouble
finding the "Prints & Enlargements" button. Next, I had to insert my
digital media. The machine accepts ten different formats, in clearly
labeled slots.

When I inserted my flash drive, I ran into a problem: the long wait
times in loading my pictures. I had upwards of a thousand pictures on
the drive, and was treated to two, 4-minute loading screens. The
screens gave no indication of progress, and I was not able to cancel.
Once the pictures loaded, they were not sorted by the directory
structure on the drive, but in descending date order. When I realized
this, I had little trouble finding the correct photo, though I had to
work through several layers of menus to select the 5x7 sizes. The
interface used large, recognizable icons, such as a green check mark
for "OK" and arrows to rotate pictures, and buttons were clearly
labelled and logically arranged. The print was produced quickly and is
reasonably high quality. I would certainly use this machine again, as
it is more convenient than other photo processing options and is quite
easy to use.

-- Kevin Gessner