If you still like to get hard copies of your digital snapshots, things have gotten slightly easier. Kodak has updated their in-store kiosks with direct photo printing from Facebook and Picasa accounts.
According to the NYT’s Gadgetwise blog, a user has to type in his/her username and password on the touchscreen, at which point only photo albums will be displayed - none of the other features typically found on Facebook. Not only can you order prints, but you can also edit images with some of Kodak’s preset features and create projects like photo books directly on the machine.
Having this direct option sounds very handy as most kiosks require some kind of media, either a USB drive, memory card or CD. Sometimes file transfers require a lot of time, or you could have walked into the drugstore and realized you forgot the media files at home.
The biggest problem, especially when it comes to Facebook photos, is that the resolution is usually reduced, making the photos much less crisp than the originals. This is clearest when you scroll through Facebook photo albums, and then compare them with the same ones on Picasa or Flickr. It’s annoying, but if you’re only having a few prints done and don’t mind the lower resolution, then this is a useful option.
