Fuji Photo Film Company, Limited

Mitsuru Yamamoto

Akira Hatakeyama

Akihiro Shimomura

Kazuhito Miyake

Yasuhiro Shimada

Shigeo Hirano

Makoto Suzuki

Hideo Ikeda

Sadanobu Shuto

Satoshi Nagaoka

Takefumi Hara

Katsuro Nagaoka

Kazuyoshi Yamakawa

Susumu Sugiyama

Akira Ogawa

Noriyuki Inoue

Hideyuki Nakamura

Naotaka Wachi

Shinichi Yoshinari

Toshiharu Tanaka

Yasutomo Goto

Yoshihiko Shibahara

Kouichi Hanaki

Tetsuro Kojima

Hidetoshi Kobayashi

Nobutaka Ohki

Kei Sakanoue

Michio Ono

Yoshiharu Sasaki

Masato Taniguchi

Tatsuo Heki

Tetsunori Matsushita

Tetsuo Kojima

Akimitsu Haijima

Akihiko Takeda

Kosaku Yoshimura

It is intended to provide a multicolor image forming material for recording an image by irradiation with laser light comprising an image receiving sheet having an image receiving layer and at least four heat transfer sheets having a light-heat conversion layer and an image forming layer, wherein the light-heat conversion layer contains a polyamide-imide of a specific structure and a cyanine colorant of a specific structure. It is further intended to provide a multiple color image forming material wherein the difference in the visible light range between the reflectance of the image forming layer of each heat transfer sheet before the irradiation with laser light and recording of an image and the reflectance of the image forming layer transferred to the image receiving layer of the image receiving sheet due to the irradiation with laser light is 10% or less, and a multiple color image forming material wherein the color difference between the color hue of the image forming layer of each heat transfer sheet immediately after the transfer to the image forming layer of the image forming sheet due to the irradiation with laser light and before exposure and the color hue thereof after exposure does not exceed 2.

Multicolor image forming material

A multicolor image-forming material comprises: an image-receiving sheet having an image-receiving layer and a support; and at least four thermal transfer sheets each including a support, a light-to-heat converting layer and an image-forming layer, in which each of the thermal transfer sheets has a different color, wherein a multicolor image is formed by: superposing the image-forming layer in each of the at least four thermal transfer sheets on the image-receiving layer, such that the image-forming layer is opposed to the image-receiving layer; irradiating the image-forming layer with a laser beam; transferring the irradiated area of the image-forming layer onto the image-receiving layer to form an image; and transferring the image on the image-receiving layer onto an actual printing paper, and each of the at least four thermal transfer sheets has a recording area being defined by a product of a length of 515 mm or more and width of 728 mm or more, and each of the at least four thermal transfer sheets is larger in each of a length-wise and a width-wise direction than the image-receiving sheet by 20 mm to 80 mm, and the actual printing paper is larger in each of a length-wise and a width-wise direction than the image-receiving sheet by 5 mm to 100 mm.

Multicolor image forming material and method for forming multicolor image

A multicolor image-forming material comprising: an image-receiving sheet comprising an image-receiving layer; and at least four thermal transfer sheets each comprising a support, a photothermal converting layer and an image-forming layer, and each having a different color, wherein an image is formed by the method comprising the steps of: superposing each one of the at least four thermal transfer sheets on the image-receiving sheet to be in a state of the image-forming layer being in contact with the image-receiving layer; and irradiating the thermal transfer sheet with a laser beam to transfer an image in an area of the image-forming layer subjected to irradiation onto the image-receiving layer, and a ratio of the reflection optical density (OD) of the image-forming layer to a thickness of the image-forming layer (&#x3bc;m unit) is 1.50 or more to 1, and a contact angle in relation to water of the image-forming layer and the image-receiving layer is from 7.0 to 120.0&#xb0;.

Multicolor image-forming material

A multicolor image-forming material comprises: an image-receiving sheet having an image-receiving layer; and at least four thermal transfer sheets each including a support, a light-to-heat converting layer and an image-forming layer, in which each of the thermal transfer sheets has a different color, wherein an image is formed by: superposing the image-forming layer in each of the at least four thermal transfer sheets on the image-receiving layer in the image-receiving sheet, in which the image-forming layer is opposed to the image-receiving layer; irradiating the image-forming layer in the thermal transfer sheet with a laser beam; and transferring the irradiated area of the image-forming layer onto the image-receiving layer in the image-receiving sheet, and each of the light-to-heat converting layers in the at least four thermal transfer sheets has a ratio of an optical density (OD) to a layer thickness: OD/layer thickness (&mgr;m unit) of 0.57 or more.

Multicolor image-forming material and method for forming multicolor image

An image-forming material comprising: an image-receiving sheet comprising a support and an image-receiving layer and; a thermal transfer sheet comprising a support, alight-to-heat conversion layer and an image-forming layer, wherein an outermost surface of the side of the thermal transfer sheet in which the image-forming layer is provided has a scratch resistance of from 50 g to 200 g at the time that the surface is scratched with a stylus having a radius of curvature of 0.25 mm at a velocity of 1 cm/sec and a method using the image-forming material.

Image-forming material and image formation method

A multi-color image-forming material is disclosed comprising image-receiving sheets each having an image-receiving layer and heat transfer sheets for at least four colors, including yellow, magenta, cyan and black, each having at least a light-to-heat conversion layer and an image-forming layer on a support, the heat transfer sheets and the image-receiving sheets being respectively laminated such that the image-forming layer of the heat transfer sheet and the image-receiving layer of the image-receiving sheet are opposed to each other, whereby the irradiation with laser beam causes the area irradiated with laser beam on the image-forming layer to be transferred onto the image-forming layer in the image-receiving sheet to effect image recording, wherein the thickness of the image-forming layer in the heat transfer sheets is from 0.01 &mgr;m to 1.5 &mgr;m and the width of lines in laser-transferred image is from 0.8 to 2.0 times a half of the half-width (i.e., the half width at half maximum) of the distribution in the direction of subsidiary scanning of the integration of the binary energy distribution of laser beam spot in the direction of main scanning.

Multi-color image-forming material and multi-color image-forming process

Heat transfer sheet and light-heat-conversion type image-forming material

A multicolor image forming material comprising: an image-receiving sheet comprising an image-receiving layer; and at least four thermal transfer sheets differing in color each comprising a support, a light-to-heat conversion layer and an image-forming layer, wherein the image forming material is used for recording a multicolor image by superposing the image-forming layer of each thermal transfer sheet and the image-receiving layer to face each other, irradiating laser light and transferring a region irradiated with the laser light of the image-forming layer onto the image-receiving layer, and at least one layer selected from the image-receiving layer and the image-forming layers comprises, as a fluorine-containing surfactant, a copolymer (I) comprising following repeating units (A), (B) and (C) as defined herein.

To provide a thermal transfer sheet which is not affected by the illumination light source even in comparison with the pigment coloring material or printed matter and upon transfer of the coloring material thin film, ensures excellent sharpness of halftone dots, good sensitivity, reduced film fogging and very stable transfer releasability. A thermal transfer sheet comprising a support having provided thereon at least a light-to-heat conversion layer containing a light-to-heat conversion substance, and an image forming layer in this order, wherein the absolute value of the difference in the solubility parameter (SP values) obtained by the Okitsu' method between the binder in the image forming layer and the binder contained in the underlying layer thereof is 1.5 or more.

Thermal transfer sheet

A heat transfer sheet comprising a light-heat conversion layer having an infrared absorption colorant and an image forming layer sequentially disposed on a support, wherein an optical density in a 600 nm to 1000 nm range of the light-heat conversion layer is within a range of 0.3 to 2.0.

Heat transfer sheet

In an image recording process comprising the steps of superposing a transfer film on an receiver film, said transfer film having an opto-thermal converting layer and a toner layer on a support and said receiver film having an image receiving layer on a support, said toner layer being opposed to said image forming layer, transferring said toner layer onto said image receiving layer by exposure of laser beam, and stripping said transfer film from said receiver film to form an image, the thickness of said opto-thermal converting layer is adjusted such that the distance from the position where a peak temperature occurs in the direction of thickness of the opto-thermal converting layer to said toner layer is within the range from zero to a third of the thickness of said opto-thermal converting layer. This design permits satisfactory image recording without undesired density drop.

Recording apparatus and method

Disclosed is a heat sensitive ink sheet having a support sheet and a heat sensitive ink layer having a thickness of 0.2 to 1.0 .mu.m which is formed of a heat sensitive ink material comprising 30-70 wt. % of colored pigment, 25-65 wt. % of amorphous organic polymer having a softening point of 40.degree. to 150.degree. C. and 0.5-25 wt. % of colorless fine particles. Further, thermal transfer recording methods by area gradation using the heat sensitive ink sheet and an image receiving sheet are also disclosed.

Heat sensitive ink sheet and image forming method

There is disclosed a silver halide color photographic material having a red-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer, a green-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer, a blue-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer, which comprises a cyan dye-forming coupler represented by formula (I) and (a) a monodisperse silver halide emulsion, (b) non-photosensitive silver halide emulsion wherein the inside or the surface of grains is fogged, (c) a colloidal silver, (d) negative-type interval latent image-type silver halide grains chemically sensitized to a defined depth from the surface, (e) a sensitizing dye containing a sulfonamide group, (f) three separated layers of high, medium, and low sensitivities, (g) two separated layers each having different content of iodine, (h) grains each having a defined spectral sensitivity distribution and a DIR-hydroquinone, or (i) a DIR-hydroquinone: formula (I) ##STR1## wherein R.sup.1 represents a hydrogen atom or a substituent, R.sup.2 represents a substituent, X represents a hydrogen atom or a group capable of being released upon a coupling reaction of the coupler represented by formula (I) with the oxidized product of a color-developing agent, and Z.sup.1 represents a group of nonmetallic atoms required for forming a nitrogen-containing 6-membered heterocyclic ring, which contains at least one group capable of being dissociated.

Silver halide color photographic material

Disclosed is a heat sensitive ink sheet having a support sheet and a heat sensitive ink layer having a thickness of 0.2 to 1.0 .mu.m which is formed of a heat sensitive ink material comprising 30 to 70 weight % of colored pigment, 25 to 65 weight % of amorphous organic polymer having a softening point of 40.degree. to 150.degree. C. and 0.1 to 20 weight % of nitrogen-containing compound. Further, thermal transfer recording methods by area gradation using the heat sensitive ink sheet and an image receiving sheet are also disclosed.

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Shizuoka, Japan

Mitsuru Yamamoto