

Show HN: Easy way to print Facebook photos - zferland
https://printspace.me/

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kamjam
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.

~~~
zferland
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 print them. In the end the photo quality maybe
better but it would take much longer than a few minutes, if you even receive
all the photos you want.

The older photos on Facebook are pretty low res, but they do now have higher
res ones available and are the proper res for 4x6 prints, I believe they have
had this since adding the full screen image viewer.

~~~
kamjam
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 :(

~~~
rcamera
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.

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lucaspiller
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?

~~~
zferland
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.

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dave5104
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 bottom of a lengthy paragraph towards the bottom of the page.

~~~
zferland
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!

~~~
rcamera
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).

~~~
zferland
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.

------
moofish
I want multiple prints of one photo, can't find a button.

Also, do you deliver to the UK?

~~~
zferland
I actually didn't think of adding multiple prints of one photo yet, good
thought, I'll look into adding it!

And yes they can be delivered to the UK, the photos are actually sent from the
UK

~~~
johnmurch
Have you thought about what if you want to send a copy to a friend but don't
know their address. Maybe an automated way to capture your friends physical
address or "easy to send" address like work. Although I guess I could see that
getting to look like spam.

Will be sure to use post holidays - also what about printing them as postcards
(photo on front, blank or typed message on back.)

~~~
zferland
Yeah, actually one of the first things I would like to add to this version is
the ability to send packages of photos to multiple friends, family, etc.
Haven't thought about how to handle it when people don't know a friend's
address (although very common I'm sure).

Didn't think of postcards, good thought!

I did think of making it possible to add text at one point, and I can print on
the back, so definitely an option.

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toddmorey
I know the photo background at the top is blurred for effect and to make the
text legible, but it makes it look like a bad photo. I'd just find something
with less visual noise so you don't have to blur it.

~~~
jldteixeira
It looks good at first, but when I tried to read it made my eyes hurt.

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joebeetee
Nice - just make sure you handle the auth cancel event - if I click 'Cancel'
on the Facebook auth popup, it's still going through to the next screen as
though I have and throwing an error...

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d135_1r43
The pic of the pics on your landing page is gigantic huge.

~~~
timjahn
Agreed. They're taking a 2292x2218 photo (INSANELY large dimensions for the
web) and resizing it down to 445x431. I'd recommend simply using a web-
optimized 445x431 image if that's all that's needed.

~~~
zferland
Thanks guys for pointing that out! Didn't realize/forgot I did that, must of
added it quick, I'll be sure to fix it

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mikeleeorg
I like the simple and direct Press Page. Especially the app screenshots. Great
idea for helping a blogger/journalist that may want to cover this service.

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ubercow13
Doesn't snapfish already do this fine?

