Photo retailers now have a ground-breaking, affordable new option for expanding beyond 4×6 prints into the growing market for high-demand premium photo products. Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:EK) introduced today the newest member of its family of thermal printers, the photo quality KODAK D4000 Duplex Photo Printer.  The D4000 is a flexible, compact double-sided print solution capable of producing high-quality borderless premium photo products, such as photo books, calendars and personalized greeting cards. The new printer works seamlessly with Kodak’s industry leading retail equipment, software and connectivity solutions.

“With our focus on transforming the photo department we are experiencing a category renaissance, and consumers are re-connecting with printing to tell their stories in exciting, meaningful and highly personalized ways,” said Nicoletta Zongrone, general manager of Retail Systems Solutions and vice president, Eastman Kodak Company. “The new D4000 Duplex Photo Printer puts retailers at the forefront of this trend, allowing them to deliver fantastic borderless duplex products with industry leading print quality and reliability they’ve come to expect from Kodak.”

The KODAK D4000 Duplex Photo Printer uses the new duplex KODAK XTRALIFE Photo Book Paper, which delivers superb photo print quality, with rich, bright colors and sharp text, driving customer preference to higher value, higher quality products. The new printer supports a broad selection of double-sided KODAK Photo Book, Calendar and Greeting Card products.  Photo books and calendars can be produced in 8×12, 8×10, 8×8 and 6×8 formats in landscape, portrait or square layouts that are compatible with many binding styles including wire, staple and slide.  Personalized, borderless flat greeting cards can be produced in 6×8 inch and 4×8 inch sizes in either landscape or portrait layouts.

According to Photographic Consultants Ltd., the global photo book market alone will grow by 61% by 2012 to more than 103 million books¹, with Kodak research showing that nearly 70% of consumers show a preference for receiving their printed photo books in an hour or less². The D4000 aligns perfectly with this profit opportunity, having been specifically designed to enable retailers to attack this growth opportunity – it is expected to require only one-third of the capital investment and will take less than half of the floor space of most comparable retail duplex inkjet solutions. The powerful thermal printer integrates seamlessly with KODAK Picture Kiosks G4 or later series, KODAK Adaptive Picture Exchange (APEX) systems, and stand-alone PC workstations, and is enabled for on-site fulfillment of orders taken in store or online, further minimizing retailer investment and integration work.

The technology behind the new duplex printer is thermal dye sublimation, which produces 2-sided high quality output up to 20 x 30 cm (8 x 12 in.) sizes in full photo quality.  The D4000 media is superior to any duplex inkjet solutions in water, stain and fingerprint resistance. Floor space friendly, the compact D4000 device stands at 78.1 x 78.3 x 39.0 cm (30.8 x 30.8 x 15.4 in.) and weighs a mere 65 kg (143 lbs) unloaded, smaller than many retail inkjet duplex dry printing solutions.

“With the merger of this new printer and our industry leading consumer and retailer photo book software solutions, we believe that we’re providing retailers with the opportunity to finally crack the code of the right printing system with the best consumer experience that will transform their business potential,” said Zongrone. “This is truly a very exciting time to be in this industry.”

The new KODAK D4000 Duplex Photo Printer will be available in Q2 of 2011. For more information visit https://www.kodak.com/go/rss.