Given that Kodak and Fuji have the upper hand on product quality, I find it unfortunate if this is the case. Adding to that the closure of Carestream (ex Kodak) facilities and the loss of industrial knowledge that represents.Absolutely, and I think Kodak was instrumental in setting up or otherwise assisting coating operations in China for their Asian market. But I think they pulled out two decades ago or so.
It's somewhat annoying because people keep associating the Kodak brand with the quality that esp. Endura offered up to a decade ago. For most amateur printers, this may be nothing more than a nuisance; our snaps may deteriorate a lot faster than we might expect, but what gives? My concern is with the few remaining fine arts printers many of whom still favor Endura and who might be enticed to jump into this quasi-Kodak adventure, only with their prints being inherently compromised, which is a threat to their livelihood. So my enthusiasm is...limited.
Unlike B&W, the supply chain seems so fragile it could collapse at any moment; at least that is the impression I get. Maybe I am just a pessimist.
The Carestream facilities aren't closed. It's a major player in other industries and they manufacture all sorts of stuff there - just not color paper.
Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yes, that'll be the definitive end of US-produced Kodak papers. There's no chance they'll move a paper coating line from one site to another.
Kodak still has its base made in Germany, where ENDURA is made. So will all paper be produced in Germany in the future?
Unexposed paper will show obvious color deviation after one to two years
It's harder to state how long freshly manufactured Crystal Archive paper will last before shifting.
I am given to understand that their is a supplier in germany that makes RC paper BASE for several photo paper product lines
I'm sure that all photos are stored safe in dry and cool place with my dad's tea.Yes with tea.
Nowadays Kodak's AgX paper is often not easy to get.
The tea concerns me a little bit
Well,to be honest,Lucky's products are not stable and enduring at all.An old photo which was printed on Lucky paper was found in my album and it was printed in 2014.Guess what,all colors had decomposed and it had such a yellow paper base that seemed like it was dipped in strong black tea and just picked up.If there was RC paper in ancient China,Lucky's paper do can be used to make counterfeits.
Anyway,though Lucky was a pride of Chinese industry,its quality cannot be phrased at all.Except their low price,no benefit I can find on Lucky's products.For example,sometimes after processing you may notice that some dots distributes on or in emulsion.Not only color paper but also B&W products have the problem.
Nowadays Kodak's AgX paper is often not easy to get.I only own few meters Endura which I'd use for important portrait enlarging.To take Kodak's place,Fuji is an equally excellent choice and it works better when printing landscapes,especially CA series.
P.s.:I'm sure that all photos are stored safe in dry and cool place with my dad's tea.Yes with tea.No sunlight can burn them.And only Lucky's paper has that disappointing situation.Most of those were my works in primary school.So sad I was.
No Kodak color paper coating ever happened in Germany to the best of my knowledge. Not now, and not in the past. There was a plant in the UK, but that shut down 15 years ago or so. The only remaining place where "real" Endura was being coated was the plant in Colorado, which was originally a Kodak plant. It was divested to Carestream around 2016 or so and it continued to coat paper for SinoPromise, which held the rights to sell it under the Kodak brand. This ceased when SinoPromise virtually disappeared overnight, putting an end to color paper manufacturing in Winsor, CO and apparently they have not managed to find a new customer for the business, so now the curtain falls.
This means the remaining sites where color are coated, are:
* The plant currently owned/operated by Lucky in (I presume) Shantou, Guangdong, China
* The FUJIFILM plant in (again, I presume) Ashigara (Kanagawa), Japan
* The FUJIFILM plant in Tilburg, The Netherlands
Out of these three, the latter produces probably 80-90% of the silver halide color paper. The Fuji Japan plant coats only a small fraction of product for its domestic/Japanese market (Fuji 'Ever Beauty' paper, which comes in a kind of cassette other than the bagged rolls consumed in the rest of the world). The remainder is made up by Lucky, which apparently has acquired the name to Kodak papers (thank you @LomoSnap for helping to figure out!).
This is actually quite normal; 1-2 years for unexposed paper is also the timeframe Fuji sticks to for its own papers. The problem of durability is not so much in the unprocessed paper, but the stability of the finished prints. This is an area where Fuji and Kodak made massive strides in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Kodak Park retains the film coating capability, is it feasible to switch to paper coating?
I think hard to believe that Kodak will abandon the color silver paper product line.
They did just that years ago.
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