NEW YORK — Just when the gloom looked to be lifting, Kodak took out its well-worn job ax one more time.

As it steers through the final months of a bumpy journey into a new world of digital imaging, the picture-taking pioneer said yesterday it will eliminate another 3,000 jobs — bringing its planned tally of layoffs to 28,000 to 30,000 since 2004.

By year end, its work force will slip below 30,000, less than half what it was just three years ago.

The cuts are to accommodate Eastman Kodak Co.'s $2.35 billion sale in January of its health-imaging unit and its costly foray this week into a high-margin inkjet-printer market dominated by Hewlett Packard Co.

"The dream was that we would wake up in 2008 with the digital company that we want to have. We're still right on that track," chief executive Antonio Perez said at an annual meeting of Kodak analysts and institutional investors.

"We will finish this year. This is done. ... This is the last year of restructuring."

The company that had put film cameras into nearly every home in America acknowledged in 2003 that its analog businesses were in irreversible decline. It outlined a strategy to invest in new digital markets governed by such entrenched heavyweights as HP, Seiko Epson Corp. and Canon Inc.

As it battled to outrun sliding demand for film, its century-old cash cow, Kodak embarked on a nearly $3 billion shopping spree but also ran up $2 billion in net losses over eight straight quarters. It finally snared a $16 million profit in the October-December period when, for the first time, it earned more from digital than from film, paper and other chemical-based products.

"As far as I'm concerned, Kodak is finally over the negative surprises," said Ulysses Yannas, a broker with Buckman, Buckman & Reid. "They are entering a phase where increasingly profitability starts to show.

"A year or two out from here, it will be a totally different company," with profits driven by an inkjet-printer system that "probably is a lot bigger than anybody thinks it's going to be."

"The inkjet introduction now appears to be a bet-the-company move for Kodak," said George Conboy, president of Brighton Securities, a money-management firm in Rochester, Kodak's hometown. "If they make a go of it, it could be very successful. If they don't, they're not going to have a second chance for a second act of this magnitude because the capital will not be as easy to come by. I don't think it has to work in '07 but it needs to show concrete results in '08."

Kodak unveiled a trio of home printers Tuesday that use ink cartridges that cost roughly half as much as the competition's. Analysts think the move could trigger a price war.

"We are interested in serving customers," Perez said in an interview. "They said they wanted a fair, low price for the ink because they want to print more and they want to print with freedom. What the other companies are going to do, I don't know, honestly don't care much."

Kodak's latest job cuts will bring extra restructuring charges of $400 million to $600 million, or total charges of $3.6 billion to $3.8 billion since 2004. The sale of its 111-year-old health unit is partly intended to help fund its $300-million-plus investment in inkjet.

Kodak said it expects digital earnings from operations will reach $200 million to $300 million in 2007 on digital revenue growth of 3 percent to 5 percent.

"By the end of the third quarter, basically my hope is that we're done with all the announcements of restructurings and jobs and everything else and we're just fully concentrated on growing" more than a dozen digital ventures, from cameras and online photo services to high-volume printing presses, Perez said.

While Kodak remains the world's top maker of photographic film, Perez doesn't discount someday discarding the storied business that George Eastman launched in 1881.

"Film is going to follow its own destiny," he said. "Right now, entertainment (motion-picture) imaging is very stable, is very good for the company. ... If that goes digital, which eventually I believe it will, then we'll do something else. We will do what's better for the shareholders."

Kodak shares fell 69 cents to end at $26 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange.