Purikura Review: Fotoroom

This is a new machine with seats! Perfect if you feel a bit tired, it also has an ice-cream campaign at the moment. But what about the rest?

The theme of this purikura is old photo booths, the slogan on the side is “Go back to foto roots.” I can see how that works with the seats.

The first screen is on the outside of the machine.

From this screen you choose your course “Edgy feminine” or “Modern Feminine” I’m not really sure how different these courses actually are. I wish they would use the exact same picture to show you how different the courses really are. I think we chose modern feminine in the end.

Then you choose the backgrounds, there are normal plain colours and some quite different looking designs. Lots of text on this machine.

Sets:

Designs:

You choose four normal and then four longer ones, these are not full-length ones though which I’ll show you later on.

Once you’ve chosen your backgrounds you move inside. The lights are reminiscent of photo studio reflectors like Lady By Tokyo. There is quite a lot of light (They use 820 watt bulbs) but the surroundings are black to balance it out.

There are two non-adjustable seats in the booth, they are fixed to the floor too.

An example of taking purikura with the chairs.

The first thing you choose inside is whether you are a group of two people or three or more people. I couldn’t find any examples, but I assume the extra people would stand/crouch behind the two on the seats.

Then you take the pictures. There were red squares on the screen to show you where to put your head. It took a little while to get used to the seats, but it was a little nicer than crouching!

First you take four regular shots, then it’s the long shot. This is not a full length shot and the machine warns you not to stand up! It just means that the design can be seen better.

Once you have taken your six there’s a bonus shot too. You can choose between one with graffiti already on it or a filtered one. It said “This time the designs are…” so I assume they change.

On the inside screen you choose your eye and skin tone options with previews, which is always nice!

Then we move to the outside decoration screen.

The tabs are Foto Room (actually Foto Rooooooom), special, pen, stamp, message and change. Foto Room is quite random, some with the name of the machine, shoes and dogs.

Props. This is all the hipster stuff you might find on sticks in photo booths abroad.

Props messages:

‘Deka’ Items. Dekai? Big? Not sure but there’s ears and other sketch-like things.

The Special menu has names, dates, seasons and one-touch decorations.

Pen sample:

Stamps sample:

There’s a lot of really good but random English messages, I think some of them are great. I wonder what Japanese girls who can’t read them think?!

There’s a good selection of fonts, but some more colours wouldn’t go amiss!

Change samples:

Now here’s a really good function. A lot of the machines have a section where you can make extra blog banners and things. But someone has put a lot of thought into this one, there’s a section where you can make cover banners specifically for Facebook, Twitter and Line. The dimensions are right for each one and they have thought about the placement of the profile pictures. I made one for Line, I’m quite tempted to use this machine on my own just to make banners! You can also make regular collages in this section if you’d prefer.

As well as the collage you can make another profile pic. So between two members you will get (digitally) six purikura, a bonus shot, a collage/banner and a profile pic. Not too shabby!

In terms of layouts you can get fancy layouts or the more usual ones. I occasionally get the fancy ones but I like to chop up the pics so I got a regular set. My friend chose a cute layout that looks like an old fashioned photobooth strip.

I was pretty impressed with this machine but then we noticed something even better- the machine is running a campaign where the first 1000 people to upload their purikura get a free Haagen Daz ice-cream!

I’m already a member so it was really easy to do. When you are getting your pictures in the usual way there’s a button underneath to submit your purikura. I decided the message on this one is appropriate.

Then you get sent to the information page, tap the red button in the middle.

Then you have to choose a title, a category and a comment (if you want)

Tap the pink button to continue.

Then tap the red button and it will upload your picture and send you to a barcode page.

Uploaded purikura.

The barcode is valid for a small vanilla tub at 7-11 convenience stores. Yay! Free ice-cream!

And here are the pictures! I think this machine takes very nice pictures the skin tone is great and it’s a nice print as well. Some of the background designs on the regular shots can’t be seen very well. It’s a shame about not having full-length but I think the rest of the plus points balance it out. I’ll definitely be using this machine again!

Regular shots:

Long pictures:

The bonus shot: