Archived Going Dry

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Hello!

Our store just received notification we will be transitioning to a dry lab soon. Other than loosing film processing, can anyone explain the difference between wet/dry lab? Pictures would be great too! Thanks!
 
I am no longer with Target. But my current work does photo printing with a Noritsu printer. Its a whole lot easier in my opinion. No more chemicals to mix and drain. No more watching water levels. No more waiting for the chemistry to come to temp, or lengthy daily calibration tests. No more photo-sensitive paper. Simple ink cartridges to install. The paper just slides in. Photos are printed with seconds. Very little maintenance.
 
Ive always wanted to be able to help out at our little photo kiosk .. Would give the GSA one less thing to worry about.



This is not the thread I thought it was going to be.

Thought this was going to be about payroll or something lol.
 
It's as easy as it sounds.

Wet labs = chemicals and water.
Dry labs = no chemicals, no water. Just ink for the duplex/poster printer, and thermal ribbon for the 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 printers.
 
Dry lab is awesome! I love it. It's basically like prints in seconds. Almost exactly the same.
 
Dry lab is awesome! I love it. It's basically like prints in seconds. Almost exactly the same.

How is the quality of the pictures? My store still has a wet lab with one print-in-seconds kiosk. We try to tell anyone who is printing more than a few prints-in-seconds to send their pics through to the one-hour service since our prints-in-seconds does a crappy job on orders larger than about 6 prints, so I've been curious about this with the dry labs.
 
APEX dry lab with the 7000 series printers can do a print every 5 seconds - but does two at a time. So, two prints in 10 seconds. Those printers are great. The 8800 (8x10 size) does a fantastic job as well.

The print-in-seconds kiosks with the 6850s - bleh. They suck. Crappy quality, and the printer overheats too often.
 
As are we, I'm pretty sure Spot is going to get rid of all of the wet labs eventually.
 
With the ongoing kodak issues and the decline of film and demand for chemicals, wetlabs are becoming a thing of the past.
 
Our store just received notification that our new dry lab install would be delayed. Surprisingly though, the wet lab equipment will be removed right on time! So, in the mean time we will be lab-less during the transition. Is this a sign of Kodak's troubling times or a mere coincidence? Only one can wonder!
 
Our store's dry equipment arrived about a week late. I think there's just an equipment shortage upstream. At least they let you know in advance! We had vendors showing up looking for equipment that wasn't here yet.
 
Our store's dry equipment arrived about a week late. I think there's just an equipment shortage upstream. At least they let you know in advance! We had vendors showing up looking for equipment that wasn't here yet.


Good to know! Thanks for sharing! Now if only we will be able to reschedule/coordinate the dry lab training with some advance notice!
 
When my store "went dry," all the Guest Service and Photo TMs were happy because they had space behind the photo counter. The new dry lab machine takes up a lot less space than the old wet machine. Now whenever photo is closed, we use the space for carts when sorting re-shop in the evening.
 
Our store's dry equipment arrived about a week late. I think there's just an equipment shortage upstream. At least they let you know in advance! We had vendors showing up looking for equipment that wasn't here yet.

We're having similar problems, old equipment out right on time, new stuff still not here.
 
When Kodak installs the new machines, they will be set to run automatically. I recommend switching it over to manual release for both network and kiosk orders. The computer will not care that nobody is there to clean it up, and will keep printing until the trays are full. Also, the new printers don't come equipped with a back printer ribbon, so the only way to determine which pictures go with what order is to look at the history of each one.

Also, the installation tech will activate new features on the kiosks that your lab just isn't capable of handling. Be sure to go in and set things up for what your lab can do. My lab has a new feature of being able to print the same picture in different sizes on a single 8x10 sheet that apparently we're supposed to slice perfectly for the guest with nothing but scissors. Also included: 4x6 picture books (no covers) and 4x6 greeting cards at 4x8 card prices. If you have a 2nd kiosk that isn't connected to the Prints in Seconds printer, he'll tell the kiosk to share but won't actually connect it to the instant printer. I've had my lab for about a month and I'm still ironing out all the new bugs.

All that said, the new lab is very simple to maintain.
 
Our lab doesn't process film, but I don't think we're actually a dry-lab. We have instant prints, and one-hour photo (machine has chemicals that must be managed daily). I hope we keep the one-hour photo, because the instant print quality isn't all that great sometimes.
 
Which means the photo lab TM is available to do even more now! :p

aka backup cashier the entire shift.

The current problem is that kodak has locked the settings in the 5.2(?) software that reverts any changes you make back to factory settings after 7 days. I had our machines perfectly calibrated to our staffing hours, products we offered, and even added sales tax to the pricing receipt.
 
Our lab doesn't process film, but I don't think we're actually a dry-lab. We have instant prints, and one-hour photo (machine has chemicals that must be managed daily). I hope we keep the one-hour photo, because the instant print quality isn't all that great sometimes.

If I remember correctly, film processing was discontinued last September. My store still had a wet lab until a couple months ago.
 
Anyone know the timeliness of the new dry lab install? We are currently in the waiting period for our new machine..we've already had the wet lab removed. It's a ghost town! We are TBA on the date of arrival...is this normal?
 
the happened to a couple of stores in our district. There's took over a month to come in. Once they get it in the process takes about 3 days from start to finish. (that included them taking our wetlab out though)
 
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