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Show HN: Easy way to print Facebook photos

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Re: Show HN: Easy way to print Facebook photos

#21

Post by samwillis »

lucaspiller wrote: post #9

OT (and maybe worthy of a separate Ask HN), but how do you start a service like this that does physical printing of stuff? Do you use a third party and just do the front end on top, or do you the whole site, printing and delivery yourselves?

I am using Pwinty for my site (http://www.posterhaste.com) and it is really easy to use. They do the printing and fulfilment and even stick a sticker on the packaging with your logo so that it looks like it is coming from you.

I assessed a few of the printing api services and Pwinty were the easiest and most others would ship under their own brand.

Re: Show HN: Easy way to print Facebook photos

#22

Post by rcamera »

kamjam wrote: post #18

Why would I want to print low res, highly compressed images from Facebook? Maybe if they were from a friend's feed and they wouldn't email me the originals for some reason or for convenience... but when they are my own pictures and I have the originals... doesn't make sense to me.

I work at a company that prints tens of millions of photos every year, and that has a Facebook integration app.

Actually, the image quality you get from FB through their API is dependent on both the photo size that is being uploaded, and the quality you ask facebook to save your photo at. A high resolution photo that is uploaded to Facebook in high quality mode is a good photo for a 10x15cm print. Any bigger print size and you start running into resolution issues.

The trick here is to show the user which photos he will have low resolution issues, and which he won't.

Re: Show HN: Easy way to print Facebook photos

#23

Post by rcamera »

zferland wrote: post #16
dave5104 wrote: post #12

How much does this cost? How does it work? How long does it take? I typically do not like "Connecting With Facebook" unless I have an extremely compelling reason to, but this landing page tells you almost nothing about what's on the other side of the authentication, apart from the end deliverables. Some more details would be great. Edit: Ah hah, I found the price. :P Perhaps don't hide it in light grey text at the bo…

Yeah I really did hide the price down there hah, thanks for pointing that out! I think you nailed with what are the most important questions users will want answers to before going any further, and they would be easy enough to make more obvious on the landing page or before connecting with FB, I also completely forgot "how long?", which should definitely be added, thanks!

Do you charge for shipping? 50 cents per photo seems pretty high, unless you have free shipping. Or maybe that is just the right price and I shouldn't compare it with our prices here in Brazil (we print millions of photos at where I work, in an HP Indigo printer, for less than a quarter than that, though we charge for shipping separatedly).

Re: Show HN: Easy way to print Facebook photos

#24

Post by kamjam »

zferland wrote: post #20
kamjam wrote: post #18

Why would I want to print low res, highly compressed images from Facebook? Maybe if they were from a friend's feed and they wouldn't email me the originals for some reason or for convenience... but when they are my own pictures and I have the originals... doesn't make sense to me.

It makes the photos you are tagged in available to print, I know for me at least, that most of those photos are not mine. And when I go to print some, I am printing photos from multiple friends. You can imagine how painful it would be to go to multiple people (especially if they are not your best friends) and ask them to find specific photos from some point in time and send them to you, then you still have to go and…

Yes, I've seen the "Upload in High Res" option in FB and usually use it myself - there is a big difference even viewing on screen and I've had some images grain very badly. I just checked the res is 2048 x 1366 - but I have no idea if that is good enough for print at that size. Guess it would depend on the image.

I very rarely print stuff these days but I can understand the convenience factor - I'm probably not your ideal demographic anyway since I very rarely print, it would not be that that inconvenient for me. Plus I only have one friend :(

Re: Show HN: Easy way to print Facebook photos

#25

Post by zferland »

rcamera wrote: post #23
zferland wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I really did hide the price down there hah, thanks for pointing that out! I think you nailed with what are the most important questions users will want answers to before going any further, and they would be easy enough to make more obvious on the landing page or before connecting with FB, I also completely forgot "how long?", which should definitely be added, thanks!

Do you charge for shipping? 50 cents per photo seems pretty high, unless you have free shipping. Or maybe that is just the right price and I shouldn't compare it with our prices here in Brazil (we print millions of photos at where I work, in an HP Indigo printer, for less than a quarter than that, though we charge for shipping separatedly).

Yes, the charge for shipping is a flat rate of $3 to anywhere in the world. I also agree 50 cents is a bit high, I would like to get it down at some point. I am using a fulfillment provider and currently at the mercy of their costs (this is very convenient though). It sounds like since you print your own and have a large volume you can get the cost much lower. I think printing my own in the future may be an option and would lower my cost a lot.

Re: Show HN: Easy way to print Facebook photos

#26

Post by rcamera »

kamjam wrote: post #24
zferland wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes the photos you are tagged in available to print, I know for me at least, that most of those photos are not mine. And when I go to print some, I am printing photos from multiple friends. You can imagine how painful it would be to go to multiple people (especially if they are not your best friends) and ask them to find specific photos from some point in time and send them to you, then you still have to go and…

Yes, I've seen the "Upload in High Res" option in FB and usually use it myself - there is a big difference even viewing on screen and I've had some images grain very badly. I just checked the res is 2048 x 1366 - but I have no idea if that is good enough for print at that size. Guess it would depend on the image. I very rarely print stuff these days but I can understand the convenience factor - I'm probably not your…

As I mentioned in another reply, if you upload in high res, and your uploaded image is big enough for a decent print, you will be able to print photos at 10x15cm without an issue. Any bigger of a photo, low resolution issues will appear.

Re: Show HN: Easy way to print Facebook photos

#27

Post by zferland »

lucaspiller wrote: post #9

OT (and maybe worthy of a separate Ask HN), but how do you start a service like this that does physical printing of stuff? Do you use a third party and just do the front end on top, or do you the whole site, printing and delivery yourselves?

For PrintSpace I used Pwinty, like @samwillis said in this thread and I couldn't agree more, Pwinty is a really easy to use printing API with a simple pricing structure.

What made them an easy choice over others was you can use them in the background like they don't even exist. Other services required users to login to their own service (or create account) before continuing which was less than ideal and created a really broken flow for a user.

Plus like @samwillis also said, they are completely white-label, putting your sticker on it if you want, making it look like it came from you.

Lastly they were very easy to communicate with, answering questions quickly and even willing to help with creating different packaging.

Some time in the future I may print my own (may be more cost effective), but for the time being this is a great choice for me.

Re: Show HN: Easy way to print Facebook photos

#29

Post by fudged71 »

vadvi wrote: post #19
d135_1r43 wrote: post #3

The pic of the pics on your landing page is gigantic huge.

and also pretty ugly with those grey spots... + please close the "h2" and "a" tags properly (at the end of the home page)

I noticed that quickly, too! Very poorly masked image.
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