Photo Kiosk is a highly customizable software, so you can easily configure it in agreement with your needs. This topic considers three different ways to use Photo Kiosk, which are good starting points, namely:
Each part of this topic includes general description of an approach, step-by-step kiosk usage algorithm and advice on how to configure Photo Kiosk.
The best known way to use kiosks is as order-taking stations, which can be placed anywhere to collect orders for your photo lab. Photo Kiosk makes it easy and convenient for your clients to place orders. Let us briefly describe order lifecycle in case of using Photo Kiosk:
Here we suppose that all orders will be completed by the photo lab. Thus, you can offer your clients additional services along with photo prints. There can be some predefined fee applied to orders (e.g., postage services fee) or customer may want to get CD/DVD disk containing photos along with printed copies, etc. For more information about additional services see the Additional Services topic.
The following configuration steps should be performed in order to start collecting orders using Photo Kiosk as print order station:
After an order is placed, Photo Kiosk exports it to the chosen format and saves it to the orders storage; this process is run automatically in the background. All orders can be exported to DPOF (format used by minilabs) or to the configurable arbitrary format. You can choose the format, configure it, and specify other settings in Configuration Tool.
For more information see the Orders Management topic.
If you want to use several kiosks to get orders for your photo lab, it is better to set a network shared folder as a Folder to store orders. That will allow collecting all orders in the same place. Also you should specify unique Photo Kiosk ID for each Photo Kiosk instance to avoid order name conflicts.
If you print photos on printers, not minilab, you can find instant print workflow very promising. The main benefits of this approach are that photos are printed right after the order is placed and they are printed automatically. You only need to connect your photo printers to a kiosk (directly or through network), configure them and Photo Kiosk one time and accept payment for each order. Let us briefly describe how it works:
You also can accept post-paid orders; just turn off code confirmation requirement using Configuration Tool.
In case of burning photos to CD or DVD, the workflow is quite the same, but on the last step the kiosk burns CD/DVD. Remember that a kiosk should be equipped with a CD/DVD burner in order to burn CDs/DVDs.
The following steps should be performed in order to configure Photo Kiosk as instant print station:
This approach is especially suitable for nightclubs, theme parks, photo studios, in a word for everyone who makes photos of clients. Your clients will be able to choose and order their photos quick and easy. Here is a brief description of this in action:
Photo galleries can be really huge, so a good idea would be to work out a system to name folders with self-explaining names. For example, folder namees can contain date when photos were taken. Thus, your clients will be able to choose only from the photos they are interested in.
The following configuration steps should be performed in order to configure Photo Kiosk as photo gallery access and order station:
Do not forget to enable folder selection in Configuration Tool, otherwise, your clients will need to choose from a huge amount of all photos in your gallery.