Could Be Better
Written: Apr 24 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: No ownership cost.
Cons: Relatively expensive per print. Poor editing controls.
The Bottom Line: Use only in an emergency or for low volume of prints when equipment ownership can't be justified.
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| maniac42's Full Review: Kodak PictureMaker Kiosk Printer |
My first attempt to print a digital color photo went well. The print had higher contrast than a print made from Kodak 35mm film would have, but the colors looked good, with no obvious streaking or banding, as is often the case with photo quality ink jet printers.
My second attempt was to print scanned copies of three old black-and-white family snapshots, each less than 8x10 in size. I brought the JPEG images to the PictureMaker on a CD-R disc prepared on my home computer. When the individual images were previewed, the PictureMaker insisted on automatically scaling them to 8x10 size, and I could find no way to specify a smaller print size, even if it meant leaving a large blank area on the 8x11 paper. Finally, I found that I could tile the three scanned images on my home computer to produce a composite slightly less than 8x10 in size, and by adding crop marks in my editing program, force the image file to exactly 8x10 size. It took three trips to the store over four hours to produce just one print. Even then, the print was contrasty and had a bluish hue to it. I didn't feel like experimenting with contrast and color balance at $6.99 a pop to see if I could get a better match to the original photos.
The PictureMaker touch screen user interface is too limited for serious work. By adding a trackball and better editing software it could be better than it is.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 6.99
Operating System: Don't Know
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Epinions.com ID:
maniac42
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Location: near San Jose, California, USA
Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Professional electrical engineer; amateur photographer.
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