A little birdy from Kodak told me the other day that our wet lab would be disappearing by the end of this year. With stories covering Kodak going bankrupt, has anyone heard what will happen with our exsisting labs or if another company plans to pick-up Kodak's turf? Our store is set up with the wet lab adjacent to the service desk. Will our kiosks still process instant prints? Our lab still processes one hour film and digital prints via a wet lab. Thank You!
Archived Photo Lab going, going, gone?
- Thread starter rednkhaki
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Kodak hasn't filed yet. Fuji may come in.
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They turned our lab into a guest service supply closet during our p-fresh remodel this year
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i was told that most likely fuji would pick up the contract but that some targets MAY lose their wet lab. I don't think anyone can really say for sure until it actually happens.
Several Targets already have lost their wetlabs, so it wouldn't surprise my if the rest of them eventually did, as well. However, Kodak announced at CES that they were planning on restructuring, and as a result, their stock jumped. So it's not the end for Kodak yet.
Just to clarify....I have heard a few different definitions of a wetlab. Is a wetlab considered only the film processor unit or is it the entire Noritsu digital machine with chemicals included? Do drylabs consist of the instant printers only? Thank you for clarifying!
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A wetlab is any setup using chemicals or a minilab system.
A dry lab, aka digital lab, only uses thermal paper and ribbon for prints. The only exception to thermal printing is the duplex/poster printer, which still use inkjet.
A dry lab, aka digital lab, only uses thermal paper and ribbon for prints. The only exception to thermal printing is the duplex/poster printer, which still use inkjet.
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we got rid of our film processing about a year ago but still run a wet lab. I just can't imagine them taking it away.. our photo lab is pretty busy every day.
ISM Master
PMT
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Our photo lab is going to go under construction at the end of the month and they are going to get rid of the wet lab.
FrontEndKnowItAll
Former PFresh Assistant
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At my old store when we went under the pFresh remodel they were going to convert us to a dry lab, but, with some budget overages and other issues they decided that we would keep the current wet lab that we had. IMO wet labs are far superior to dry labs, they may require more work and specialized knowledge as well as being more expensive to maintain, but, it is the fact that we offered quality prints from a quality system that set us apart. I have worked with both Fuji and Kodak systems and I prefer the DLS software that Kodak engineered and with the Noritsu processors (assuming your team is good at maintenance and running emulsion number changes on ALL paper types/sizes) they make the best prints for the money!
It would be a shame for all wet labs to go away, especially in the stores that still have a high volume of photo traffic to support it! But it seems that the current trend is to cut payroll/cost wherever they possibly can!!!! Even at my store where profit is way over $10,000,000 for the year. But until we are a "Golden Contribution Store" they wont stop trying to cut hours and corners, makes you wonder at what point is enough enough?
It would be a shame for all wet labs to go away, especially in the stores that still have a high volume of photo traffic to support it! But it seems that the current trend is to cut payroll/cost wherever they possibly can!!!! Even at my store where profit is way over $10,000,000 for the year. But until we are a "Golden Contribution Store" they wont stop trying to cut hours and corners, makes you wonder at what point is enough enough?
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