What manufacturer's ink does each reseller sell?

[hpnetserver]

Again I may be blowing smoke. But someone posted a message saying something about Costco's Kirkland brand 8x11 glossy photo paper. It was speculated that it was sourced from Ilford. It was very cheap, much cheaper than any Ilford brand paper you can find. Nobody knows for sure if it was truly sourced from Ilford although it said it was made in Switzerland and Ilford is the only inkjet paper manufacturer in Switzerland. Costco does not disclose who the manufacturer was. The recent posting about the paper said it is no longer has the words Made in Switzerland on the box any more. It has Made in USA instead now.

The smoke I am blowing is if it was indeed sourced from Ilford, Costco has sold it too cheap and it hurt Ilford's channels. So Ilford finally cut it off from supplying Costco. This may be a typical case that Ilford once allowed Costco to sell its paper without the Ilford brand name. But the words Made in Switzerland made it easy for people to guess that Ilford was the source of the paper. Ilford had to call it off now since the identity of the paper is no longer a secret. Had costco not had Made In Switzerland on the box we might be able to buy it still today at the increible low price.

I still believe the difference between disclosed and non disclosed sources could be just in the price you pay.

 

[on30trainman]

I may have be one of several who recently talked about Costco paper and the fact that it now says "Made in USA". You make a good point about a possible Ilford/Costco pricing issue. But with all the different varieties of Ilford paper and the fact that Costco only sold one, does the lower pricing at Costco really hurt Ilford's profit? How many are Costco members? Guess many of us here are.

On another thought - has any one here compared the prints from the "Made in Switzerland" and "Made in USA" papers? I only have the Swiss version right now - may pick up a USA box on my next Costco trip. I have a printer profile for the Costco Swiss paper and Hobbicolors ink for my ip6000D made with Profile Prism. Need to try that on the USA flavor paper and compare results. Anybody have a guess on the manufacturer of the "Made in USA" Costco paper?

Steve W.

 

[Grandad35]

... has any one here compared the prints from the "Made in Switzerland" and "Made in USA" papers?

I have already switched to the "New" Kirkland paper, 150 sheets/pack, 255 gr/sq meter, 10.4 mils thick with the "Made in USA" label. I found about 25 sheets of the "Old" Kirkland paper, 125 sheets/pack, 255 gr/sq meter, 10 mils thick. However, I couldn't find any markings indicating where it was manufactured. It has been stated in numerous places that this paper was manufactured by Ilford, but I don't recall the original source of this information. The "New" paper is an even better bargain than the "Old" paper, since you now get 20% more sheets for the same price. The only negative I have seen so far with the new paper is that the old paper came in a proper box that could be used to ship photos after they were printed. The new paper's "box" is far less useful after the paper is used.

I looked at the recommendations for printer settings included with both packs of paper, and they were identical for my printer (so Kirkland feels that they are identical, for what that's worth).

I haven't noticed any major color difference with the new paper, but had planned on generating a new profile for it when I get a chance. Because of this thread, I took a sheet of each paper and printed the same color test chart on both papers, using the same driver and printer settings. These test charts were then measured with a spectrophotometer and the results recorded in the "Lab" color space. The following list gives the "dE" ("delta-E") color differences between the two papers for 8 colors. Note that a dE of 1.0 is at about the limit of what our eyes can differentiate on side-by-side samples.

dE Color Old Lab values New Lab values
0.7 Paper White 94.4 -0.4 -4.5 94.5 -0.1 -3.9
1.8 Red 54.6 66.3 42.4 54.5 67.2 43.9
1.2 Blue 32.8 13.4 -64.8 32.4 12.8 -65.7
5.7 Green 54.2, -67.9 49.4 55.2 -72.6 52.4
0.5 Yellow 85.2 -14.8 90.1 85.6 -14.8 90.4
1.5 Magenta 49.3 72.3 -27.9 48.9 72.8 -29.3
1.6 Cyan 54.6 -66.3 -22.2 54.6 -67.9 -22.5
2.4 Black 7.3 7.4 -10.2 5.5 6.3 -9.0

I have never done this comparison test on two papers before, so I can't say whether this is considered to be a large or small difference, but most of these values are close and a side-by-side comparison shows little difference. The main exception is green, where the color difference on the samples was obvious (and the dE was large). A few other points:
1. The new paper is very slightly "whiter".
2. The new paper gives a slightly darker black for the same ink laydown.

 

[Tin Ho]

Is this new Kirkland paper waterproof? The previous made in Switzerland paper was not. The 4x6 Kirkland paper is waterproof. It is not a very white paper although that's not usually how a paper should be judged. But presumably the whiter should be better. It's interesting to see how the new Kirkland paper performs. It may be an even better source of paper for general photo printing.

 

[binkie]

How did a discussion on paper get here, gang? This forum is supposed to be for the question - What manufacturer's ink does each reseller sell? But, hey, I learned a lot about paper, so it ain't all bad.