Pictures and a Giveaway!

Hey pals!

Twenty-five-teen words: Best. Weekend. EVER!!!! I have lots to tell you about, including a parade, Grandma, and some amazing news. But for now, I just want to focus on Friday, known around here as Mommy/Mister Fun Day. I call it that because it's the day Mommy is off work ALL day, so we get to snuggle and have adventures and I love it. This Fun Day though wasn't completely fun because Mommy left me in the morning to go to school and pick up her graduation stuff. I guarantee I was a lot cuter in my graduation stuff than she will be, but I'm still mad I don't get to go. Anyway, after she got her stuff, she went to CVS to do one other thing:

Ms. April contacted me to see if I'd be interesting in trying out Kodak's picture kiosk. They have some cool features for pets and neat products. She even said she'd send a gift card to off-set expenses. Mommy had been thinking we needed more pictures of ME around, so she said, "Oh Mister, please say yes!" And I said, "OK Mommy. Whatever you want. And you have boogers in you nose. I'll clean them up."  Here's the downside to agreeing to it: I'm not allowed in CVS (or any place else with Kodak kiosks! Species-ism I say. But I have the greatest Mommy ever and she said she'd test it out for me and help me with the review. So I'm going to turn this post over to her.

Thanks Pup-A-Lup. Mooooooom, o-nay icknames-nay. Sorry. As Mister has already said I went to CVS to try out Kodak's picture kiosks. I've used something similar before to print pictures from my memory card, back when I actually used a separate camera, so I was a little familiar with the process. I've also used CVS to print pictures when I got home from study abroad and had roughly 500 pictures I HAD to print (remember those days? Even digital pictures had to printed because...I don't know why) and they were super cheap. 

So, I go into CVS and pretty quickly find the photo area near the check out. They had two Kodak kiosks and stools for each one. The first kiosk I tried had a weird screen issue which made the touch screen less responsive. Since I knew I had editing to do on some pictures, I switched machines and everything was much easier.

I read up ahead of time and knew you could print pictures from Facebook or via your phone's bluetooth. I had a complete brain-fart on my FB password and it never would let me sign in, but I'm pretty sure that's user error and not Kodak's fault :) Phone it is! I had to download an app (it was free) and the kiosk displayed a password to connect to Wi-Fi (no data charges. It actually won't work UNLESS you connect to Wi-Fi) and I was off. The app allows you to select pictures from your phone or for the kiosk to display all your photos and you can select from there. Again, user error resulted in me using both. I was just trying to get the full effect for the review. Sure Mom. Hush.

Once I finally got my pictures selected it was time to edit. The part I was most excited to try was the pet-eye correction. You know the laser eyes most animals get when you use a flash? This is a correction tool for it, similar to the red-eye corrector for humans (they have that one, too). It allowed me to zoom in and apply the corrector more precisely. He still has a crazy glow around his eyes, but I really think it's partly the coloring of the picture. If I had been more patient in completely fixing it, I think I could have gotten it all. It's still much better. My baby has beautiful dark eyes again instead of glowy yellow.

I also played with the human editing tool: face softener. I couldn't tell a huge difference when I applied it, but I'm a little photo-dumb. I rarely see a difference when everyone else is like "Oh, that's sooooo much better. It didn't recognize my husband as a face since his eyes were squinty, so I couldn't apply it to him. 

I also edited this one to black and white

Finally came time to print. I decided to do 1 8x10 of me and my husband at the Statue of Liberty, 1 5x7 of all three of us at a baseball game, and two regular 4x6s. My idea is to hang them as part of a gallery wall. The kiosk printed a receipt, which I took to the printer right behind me, scanned the barcode, and they printed right there. The overall quality is great. The 8x10 got cut off just a little bit, which was displayed before I actually printed so it wasn't a surprise, but still annoying. The display also said my resolution on the 5x7 was low and may result in decreased quality, but again, I can't tell a difference.

Printer

Pictures print to here

The 8x10. The photo wasn't great to begin with, but about half my torso got cut off by printing it so large. I knew this when displayed and decided cutting me off was better than cutting off the SoL's torch. Also the spots in the corner are from the overhead light, not the picture itself or the print job.

All of my photos.

Overall, I had a good experience and would definitely use them for printing more pictures for the gallery wall.

Thanks Mom! Here's the best news: Ms. April said she'd send a lucky reader a gift card to print pictures for a gallery wall (whatever that is) or other cool products you can get like albums, calendars, and cards. I'm thinking Christmas cards with yours truly on them since Mommy didn't quite spend all the monies on our card. All you have to do is leave a comment and I will enter the total number in my high-tech raffle-helicopter thingy. Only US residents are eligible since that's where the kiosks are. Winner will be picked Thursday!

Disclaimer: I was provided a gift card for use at CVS Kodak kiosks in exchange for my our feedback. All opinions are 100% my mommy's.