Ric Cisson
January 15th, 2009, 10:38 PM
Hi everyone, just wanted to share a little info for those of you that are utilizing your local Costco for printing services. Just a couple of days ago I learned that Costco will be switching over from "wet" process to "dry" process over the course of the next fiscal year in the majority of its brick and morter warehouses. I have learned this from a very close friend in the upper echelon of Costco and collaborated his info with a very good long time friend within Fujifilm USA. So as a sneak peak the system that will supplant the Frontier systems will be the DL410 "Dry" minilab system. This is the same system that Sams Club and Wal-Mart is being retrofitted with at this time. It is an inkjet system utilizing 4 colors (Cyan, Yelow, magenta and Black) as the primary colors, printing resolution @ 720 dpi x 720 dpi, producing 640 4x6 prints per hour. Capable of printing up to 8x10 prints on either Glossy or Luster paper (Fuji branded paper) comparable to Epson Premium Glossy and Epson Ultra Premium Luster in weight, look and feel. Ink is dye based, strangely similar to Epson Claria Dye inks (Epson R1400 printer ink), with an archival quality of up to 90 years, which is a little more than the current Fuji Crystal Archive RA-4 papers for the Frontier systems. Select Costco warehouses will also intergrate with the DL410 system either an Epson Pro 7880 or 7900 for prints up to 24x36 and panorama prints up to 44 inches initially with software driver expansion possibility up to 90 inches dependent upon local demand. (The 44 inches will remain as such subject to review periodically within regional districts to determine if demand warrants driver expansion).
Implementation of the dry systems is based upon local enviromental impact studies which each community is trying to monitor and clean up hazardous chemicals and waste. The system is no bigger than 2 Epson 4880's sitting side by side and maybe 1.5 times as deep. Would fit in my studio easily, and the price per unit is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 35,000 clams, compared to 200,000 clams for the Frontier.
The system is designed to be self calibrating and profiling in the long run. I have tested the system personally this past week, and can honestly tell you I am extremely excited about this entire system and the potential that it exhibits. I am sure that as the warehouses make the transition that there will be growing pains associated with a learning curve. But what I got out of the DL-410 was exactly what I saw on my calibrated laptop, and files submitted were in RGB not sRGB, which really blew me away because I forgot to convert to sRGB.
The future of print processing is continuiing to evolve and it is looking beautiful.
Implementation of the dry systems is based upon local enviromental impact studies which each community is trying to monitor and clean up hazardous chemicals and waste. The system is no bigger than 2 Epson 4880's sitting side by side and maybe 1.5 times as deep. Would fit in my studio easily, and the price per unit is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 35,000 clams, compared to 200,000 clams for the Frontier.
The system is designed to be self calibrating and profiling in the long run. I have tested the system personally this past week, and can honestly tell you I am extremely excited about this entire system and the potential that it exhibits. I am sure that as the warehouses make the transition that there will be growing pains associated with a learning curve. But what I got out of the DL-410 was exactly what I saw on my calibrated laptop, and files submitted were in RGB not sRGB, which really blew me away because I forgot to convert to sRGB.
The future of print processing is continuiing to evolve and it is looking beautiful.