CN1208198C - Method for producing a matte finish on photographs using a thermal transfer printer - Google Patents

Abstract

A method for generating a mat finish on a photo using a thermal printer, the thermal printer including a thermal print head for heating a ribbon and generating an image on the photo using the ribbon, the ribbon including a plurality of color zones fixedly arranged in series, each color zone including a plurality of dye zones having different color dyes and a dye zone having a protective layer, the method including heating the plurality of dye zones having different color dyes and sublimating the color dyes onto a photo paper using the thermal print head, and heating different areas of the dye zone having the protective layer using the thermal print head for at least two or more time periods to form a mat finish pattern of the protective layer on the photo paper.

Description

Method for producing a matte finish on photographs using a thermal transfer printer

technical field

The invention relates to a method for printing photos on a thermal transfer printer, in particular to a method for producing dull polishing on a photo by using a thermal transfer printer.

Background technique

Existing film photos have glossy finish and matte finish. The development of technology has made it possible to print digital photos taken by digital cameras on thermal transfer printers at a reasonable price. Glossy photos are printed with color dyes to form a uniform protective layer on the image, while matte photos cannot be achieved in the same way. Instead, typical matte photos are used on traditional film photos. (film photograph) on the development of photographic processing technology.

Please refer to FIG. 1 . FIG. 1 is a traditional film photo 10 . The image on the photo paper 12 is covered with a protective layer 14 . The material of the protective layer 14 is a tiny circular protrusion (for clear marking, the size is enlarged in Fig. 1), so that the photo can look like a matte photo. As the incident light is reflected, the image on the photo paper 12 appears matte—that is, a uniformly reflected gloss.

There is currently no proper way to apply a matte finish to digital prints printed with thermal transfer printers. And make more and more photographers have to print their own digital photos without using other photo developer (photodvevloper), this is also one of the shortcoming in this field at present.

Contents of the invention

The object of the present invention is to provide a method for producing a matte finish on a photograph using a thermal transfer printer to solve the above-mentioned problems.

The present invention includes using a thermal transfer printhead to heat different areas of an overcoating dye frame on an ink ribbon for at least two different time periods to form overcoating dye frame overcoats on a print. light style. The two different time periods are respectively a first period and a second period. The matte finish pattern includes a two-dimensional array, each cell in the two-dimensional array is heated during a first or second cycle, the first cycle being longer than the second cycle, and the first cycle being heated on the photo paper The thickness of the protective layer produced on the above is greater than the thickness of the protective layer produced in the second cycle.

The present invention also provides a thermal printer implemented according to the above method.

The advantage of the present invention is that the protective layer gives the photo a matte finish according to two different time periods and allows the photographer to cover the digital photo with a matte finish without the need for additional photo developers.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is the schematic diagram of existing film photo with matte finish;

Fig. 2 is the schematic diagram of photograph of the present invention;

Fig. 3 is the schematic diagram that the present invention uses thermal transfer printing head and ribbon;

FIG. 4 is an enlarged view of the area of FIG. 2 .

Specific implementation content

Please refer to FIG. 2 . FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a digital photo 20 produced by the thermal transfer printing head according to the present invention. The print 20 includes a print medium 22 on which printing dye of a thermal transfer printer can be coated. After the printer prints dye on the upper surface 28 of the media 22, a protective layer 24 covers the upper surface 28 to protect the dye from moisture or other factors that may cause deterioration. Protective layer 24 is evenly distributed as a thin layer of substantially the same thickness to provide protection and allow print 20 to have a smooth finish. The method of the present invention can divide the protection layer 24 into a two-dimensional array 26, and process at least two protection layers with different thicknesses in different units (pixels) on the array 26 according to a matte polishing pattern. Note that array 26 and the cells therein are not physical entities. In addition, for the convenience of illustration, the unit size of the array 26 in FIG. 2 is intentionally enlarged.

Please refer to FIG. 3 . FIG. 3 shows the thermal transfer print head 30 heating the dye block with the protective layer on the ribbon 32 to transfer the protective layer to the printing medium 22 . Printhead 30, ribbon 32, and print medium 22 are all movable relative to each other. As previously described, the printhead 30 may uniformly heat the protective layer over a period of time to impart a smooth finish on the print 20 . According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the print head 30 can use two different time periods to heat the protective layer on the ribbon 32, so as to configure two protective layers with different thicknesses. According to the arrangement of Fig. 3, a longer heating time results in a thicker protective layer arrangement.

Please refer to FIG. 4 , which is an enlarged view of the photo 20 . From the configuration of the two-dimensional array 26 in FIG. 2 , the print head 30 uses different heating times in a first cycle and a second cycle to form protective layer configurations with different thicknesses. A longer first period results in thicker overcoat regions, while a shorter second period creates thinner overcoat regions. The thermal transfer print head 30 or other thermal transfer print head designs can use different amounts of heat to heat the elements of the array 26, similar to the way color dyes are heated to print image pixels. Taking Fig. 4 as an example, there is a thin protective layer region 40 and a thick protective layer region 42 on the printing medium 20, and these thick and thin protective layer regions 42, 40 are all randomly distributed on the upper surface 28 of the medium 22, and of course the preferred distribution Both thick and thin protected areas 42, 40 can be distributed on the upper surface 28 with a probability of 50%. The shape of the thick and thin protected areas 42 , 40 can be square, however this also depends on the design of the print head 30 . In practice, the shapes of the thick and thin protection areas 42, 40 include other shapes, not limited to square.

Compared with the matte polishing of the existing film, the photo 20 with matte polishing produced by the method of the present invention has different parameters such as the first cycle, the second cycle, and the size and shape of the array 26 units. Compared with the traditional film, it has the effect even better than that of the traditional film. For example, for a specific square unit randomly distributed at 150DPI, assuming that the proportions of the thick and thin units are 50% and 50%, respectively, the polishing effect is different from that of 300DPI and the proportions of the thick and thin units are 60% and 40%. Other parameters such as the quality and reflectance of the photo paper also affect the polishing effect. Regardless of the selected parameter values, these arbitrary stylistic variations must be such that the human viewer of the photograph 20 will be free from any visual artifacts, uneven reflections, and unwanted artifacts. Furthermore, the pitch on each unit must be sufficient to show a matte finish, otherwise poor quality pitch will not give a good polishing effect.

Here, the first period and the second period of the preferred embodiment are taken as an example. According to the method of the present invention, if more than three cycles are used to generate corresponding more than three different thicknesses of the protection zone, a better polishing effect can be obtained. From another point of view, in FIG. 1 , the bumps on the protective layer 14 of the existing polished film print 10 can also be regarded as similar to adopting a plurality of different time periods. Of course, the designer or user can consider the number and length of the time period to be selected depending on factors such as the price of the thermal transfer printer, the processing time of polishing, and the required polishing quality. If they can afford the higher cost and slower printing Time, you can choose more than three time periods to obtain better polishing quality.

In practical application, the method of the present invention can be implemented on an existing thermal transfer printer, and can be completed by controlling the thermal transfer printer circuit and microprocessor and other hardware through appropriate software.

Compared with the prior art, the present invention can apply a thermal transfer printer to produce a matt finish on the printed photo, which enables photographers to provide another more economical convenience without using other developers. Select to print digital photos with a matte finish.

Claims (6)

1. A method of producing a matte finish on a photograph using a thermal transfer printer comprising a thermal printhead for heating a ribbon and using the ribbon to produce a Image, the color band includes a plurality of continuously fixed color areas, each color area includes a plurality of dye areas with different color dyes and a dye area with a protective layer, the method includes: using a thermal print head to heat the plurality of dye zones of different colors and sublimate the colored dyes onto a photo paper; and Using the thermal printhead to heat different areas of the overcoated dye zone for at least two or more time periods, the two different time periods being a first A period and a second period, the matte polishing pattern includes a two-dimensional array, each unit in the two-dimensional array is heated during the first or second period, the first period is longer than the second period, and The thickness of the protective layer produced on the photo paper by the first cycle is greater than the thickness of the protective layer produced by the second cycle. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the matte polishing pattern is such that the probability of each unit being heated during the first cycle or the second cycle is substantially random. 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first period and the second period are adjustable to produce different matte finish qualities on photo paper. 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the shape of the units on each array is square, and the length and width of each unit can be adjusted to form different matte finish qualities on the photo paper. 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the unit is 150-600DPI. 6. A thermal printer implemented according to the method of claim 1.

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