One of the coolest features of Kinzin (if we do say so ourselves) is that you can have ten of your favorite photos (they don’t have to be new!) automatically mailed each month to a loved one (or to yourself, if you just want to have physical prints).

It’s a great way to include family members who don’t use the Internet, or just prefer paper to screen. The photos are printed on high quality photo paper using professional-grade photo finishing equipment, and can be shipped anywhere in the world.

How it works is pretty simple. You have an Outbox for photos. Each month, the 10 photos most recently added to that outbox get printed and shipped to the addresses you specify. You can "prime" your outbox with as many photos as you like. As they're printed they get moved from your Outbox to your Sent Photos folder. I personally keep about 50 photos in my Outbox all the time, and just add new favorite photos as I take them.

You can get started by clicking on Mail Prints in the Navigation Pane.

Designating recipients

Next, you create a list of recipients for your photos. For each person you would like to receive prints, simply enter their postal addresses, and Kinzin will ensure they receive a shipment of your favorite photos every month. As of the writing of this document, the cost for this service is $2.99 per recipient, including all shipping and handling charges to addresses in the USA. There’s a special launch offer, too: buy two and get one free. 10 photos per month, delivered to address of your choice anywhere in the world for less than the cost of a cup of coffee. Pretty good deal.

Choosing your prints

Next is to choose the photos to be printed. Click on the Outbox tab to get started. You can add photos to the Outbox from your Shoebox, Flickr (if you have a Flickr account), or from your local hard drive. Any new photos you add here will be automatically added to your Shoebox so you can add them to books or status messages later.

You can add them yourself, or let Kinzin select the photos for you automatically. It’s really that simple. If you add more than 10 photos in any month, Kinzin will simply put them in the queue for next month.

What if I don’t have 10 photos in my outbox?

Ah. Good question. You were probably also wondering what the word "autoselected" meant in the screen shot to the left. If you haven’t put ten photos in your inbox by the time the end of the month rolls around, you Kinzin will help you out, if you like. By clicking on automatic settings, you can choose how Kinzin will automatically select photos (we say these photos have been “autoselected”) for print, if you haven’t manually added enough photos for this month’s run. Kinzin gives you three choices:

• Fill out the print run with the most recent photos you have added to your Shoebox. The most recent photo is the last photo you added.
• Fill out the print run by randomly selecting photos that have not yet been printed from your Shoebox. Sometimes this is a better choice than selecting the most recent if, for example, you have uploaded a bunch of photos that are very similar.
• Never fill out the print run with additional photos. Only photos that you have manually selected will be printed and mailed.

Seeing what has already been sent

Sent photos looks just like the Outbox, except that those pictures have already been sent. This helps you keep track of which photos your friends and family have already received.