Radiation imagery chemistry: process – composition – or product th – Radiation sensitive product – Identified radiation sensitive composition with color...
Reexamination Certificate
2000-09-18
2002-10-29
Baxter, Janet (Department: 1752)
Radiation imagery chemistry: process, composition, or product th
Radiation sensitive product
Identified radiation sensitive composition with color...
C430S544000, C430S546000, C430S599000, C430S600000, C430S601000, C430S607000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06472132
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material and an image-forming method using the light-sensitive material. Particularly, the present invention relates to a silver halide light-sensitive material to form an ultra-high contrast photographic image that is used in the fields of graphic art, and to an image-forming method using the light-sensitive material.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In a photomechanical process in the fields of graphic art, a method is used in which a photographic Ad image having continuous tone is converted into a so-called dot image, which expresses the contrast of an image by the size of a dot area, and this dot image is combined with an image obtained by taking photographs of character and line originals, to produce a printing original plate. It has been demanded that silver halide light-sensitive materials used for such a purpose have ultra-high contrast (particularly, &ggr; is 10 or more) photographic properties enabling clear separation of image portions from non-image portions, to improve the reproduction of characters, line originls, and dot images.
In the fields of graphic art, image-forming systems obtaining ultra-high contrast (particularly, &ggr; is 10 or more) photographic properties are disired, to obtain good reproduction of continuous tone images by dot images.
As a method for obtaining high-contrast photographic properties, a lithographic developing system, making use of the so-called “infectious development effect”, has long been used. However, this system is very unstable with respect to oxidation of a developer by air, since the density of sulfurous ions in the developer is low, requiring much replenisher to keep the liquid activity stable.
Examples of an image-forming system that eliminates the instability of the lithographic developing system in the formation of an image, that ensures processing using a developer having high storage stability, and that makes it possible to obtain ultra-high contrast photographic properties, include systems described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,166,742, U.S. Pat. No. 4,168,977, U.S. Pat. No. 4,221,857, U.S. Pat. No. 4,224,401, U.S. Pat. No. 4,243,739, U.S. Pat. No. 4,269,922, U.S. Pat. No. 4,272,606, U.S. Pat. No. 4,311,781, U.S. Pat. No. 4,332,878, U.S. Pat. No. 4,618,574, U.S. Pat. No. 4,634,661, U.S. Pat. No. 4,681,836 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,650,746. In these systems, a surface-latent-image-type silver halide photographic light-sensitive material, to which a hydrazine derivative is added, is processed by a developer using, as the developing agent, hydroquinone/Metol or hydroquinone/phenidone having a pH of 11.0 to 12.3 and containing a sulfurous acid preservative in an amount of 0.15 mol/liter or more, to form an ultra-high contrast negative image having a &ggr; value exceeding 10. According to this method, ultra-high contrast and highly sensitive photographic properties can be obtained, and because a sulfite with a high concentration can be added in a developer, the stability of the developer against oxidation by air is extremely improved compared with the stability of a conventional lithographic developer.
Meanwhile, in the fields of photomechanical processes, there are demands for photographic light-sensitive materials excellent in image reproduction of an original, stable processing solutions, facilitated replenishment, and the like, to deal with the variation and complexity of printed products.
Particularly, originals to be used for a line portion-containing photographic step are made by applying photocomposition characters, handwriting characters, illustrations, and dotted photographs. In the originals, therefore, images differing in density and line width are intermingled, and there is hence a strong demand for a process camera, a photographic light-sensitive material, and an image-forming method that enable these originals to be reproduced with good image reproduction. In a mechanical process for catalogues or large-scale posters, expansion (division extension) or contraction (division contraction) of a dot photograph is widely practiced. In a mechanical process in which dots are expanded and used, the line density is roughened, leading to photography with blurred points. In a mechanical process in which dots. are contracted, the number of lines per inch is larger than that of the original, leading to photography of fine points. Therefore, an image-forming method having a wider latitude is needed, to keep the reproduction of dot gradation. In order to improve, particularly, the reproduction of dot images in the expansion (division extension) or contraction (division contraction) of a photograph composed of dots, and the reproduction of characters of originals in which Mincho/Gothic characters are intermingled, an image-forming method is sought that has a wide latitude not only providing ultra-high contrast photographic properties but also enabling reproduction of fine line image of originals and exact reproduction of dot images ranging from large dots to small dots.
To improve original reproduction, JP-A-3-39952 (the term “JP-A-” as used herein means an unexamined published Japanese patent application), JP-A-3-174143, JP-A-4-19647, or the like disclose a method in which an ultra-high contrast silver halide light-sensitive material having a multilayer structure, which includes a layer containing a redox compound that releases a development inhibitor by oxidation, and a light-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer containing a hydrazine derivative, is processed in a developer having a pH of 11 or more. In this method, the original reproduction is remarkably improved.
The above method, in which a surface-latent-image-type silver halide photographic light-sensitive material, to which a hydrazine derivative is added, is processed in a developer having a pH of 11.0 to 12.3, makes it possible to improve the stability of a developer by using a high-density sulfurous acid preservative. However, in order to obtain an ultra-high contrast photographic image, it is necessary to use a developer having a relatively high pH value. In this case, the developer tends to be oxidized by air, and it is therefore necessary to replenish a large amount of a developer. In view of this, various ideas, in which an ultra-high contrast photographic image-forming system utilizing nuclei formation developing of a hydrazine compound is realized using a developer having a lower pH, have been attempted.
In order to obtain an ultra-high contrast image by using a stable developer having a pH of less than 11.0, a method using a highly active hydrazine-type nucleating agent, and a nucleation accelerator, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,269,929 (JP-A-61-267759), U.S. Pat. No. 4,737,452 (JP-A-60-179734), U.S. Pat. No. 5,104,769, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,780; JP-A-1-179939 and JP-A-1-179940; U.S. Pat. No. 4,998,604 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,994,365, and JP-A-8-272023.
In the processing using such an image-forming system, improvements in sharp dot quality and process stability are observed. However, further improvement is needed in view of reproduction of an original and a wide exposure latitude. Also, the above method cannot be said to be satisfactory in the point of original reproduction in the case of using the aforementioned redox compound that releases a development inhibitor by oxidation. There is a strong need to develop light-sensitive materials having higher original reproduction. Also, in view of environmental problems, which have been greatly emphasized in recent years, there is a strong need to develop light-sensitive materials that have small variation in the photographic properties, and that also have small variation in original reproduction, with variation in the composition of a developer, to decrease developer waste.
Meanwhile, Japanese patent No. 2709760 discloses a hydrazine-type redox compound that includes two sulfonamido groups and four or more repeating units of an ethyleneoxy group, and JP-A-9-269553 discloses a hydrazine-type redox compound that includes two sulfona
Ezoe Toshihide
Hoshimiya Takashi
Kuwabara Ken-ichi
Kyota Hirokazu
Taniguchi Masahiko
Baxter Janet
Fuji Photo Film Co. , Ltd.
Sughrue & Mion, PLLC
Walke Amanda C.
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