Radiation imagery chemistry: process – composition – or product th – Retrieving image made using radiation imagery
Reexamination Certificate
2001-08-13
2003-09-16
Chea, Thorl (Department: 1752)
Radiation imagery chemistry: process, composition, or product th
Retrieving image made using radiation imagery
C430S350000, C430S351000, C430S384000, C430S386000, C430S390000, C430S505000, C430S543000, C430S552000, C430S556000, C430S558000, C430S944000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06620562
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to a color photographic or photothermographic element in which at least one blue-light sensitive image recording layer comprises an infrared dye-forming agent. The present invention is also directed to a method of scanning a color photographic or photothermographic element comprising the use of infrared, green, and red color channels.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
U.S. Pat. No. 5,756,269 to Ishikawa et al. discloses the combination of three different developers with three different couplers. For example, a coupler “Y-1” is used with a hydrazide developing agent to form a yellow dye. Ishikawa et al. does not mention, nor attach any significance to, the fact that the same coupler is a magenta dye-forming coupler if used with a common phenylenediamine developing agent.
Clarke et al., in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,415,981 and 5,248,739, showed that azo dyes formed from a blocked hydrazide developer are shifted to shorter wavelengths. This is perhaps not surprising since azo dyes derived from “magenta couplers” are known to be typically yellow and are used as masking couplers. The substitution pattern on the masking coupler is such that it can undergo further reaction with the oxidized form of a paraphenylene diamine developer to form a magenta dye.
Infrared dyes are used in the photographic area for certain applications. For example, motion picture soundtracks are typically an optically encoded signal that can be read by an infrared detector during projection. In many instances, this signal is encoded by developed metallic silver. However, some applications use and infrared dye for this signal so that the soundtrack can be developed in a chromogenic photographic developing process. The sound track technology is described by: Ciurca, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,178,183; Sakai, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,208,210; Osborn, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,250,251; Fernandez, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,233,389; Monbaliu, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,267 and Olbrecht, et al. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,030,544 and 5,688,959. Hawkins, et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,063 describes the use of non-visible color layers to carry collateral information such as sound or metadata in still pictorial images. The use of an infrared dye-forming coupler to store metadata in a photographic image has been described by Edwards in U.S. Pat. No. 6,180,312.
PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED BY THE PRESENT INVENTION
It has become desirable to limit the amount of solvent or processing chemicals used in the processing of silver-halide films. A traditional photographic processing scheme for color film involves development, fixing, bleaching, and washing, each step typically involving immersion in a tank holding the necessary chemical solution. Images are then produced by optical printing. By scanning the film image following development, some of the processing solutions subsequent to development could be eliminated for the purposes of obtaining a color image. Instead, the scanned image could be used to directly provide the final image to the consumer.
By the use of photothermographic film, it would be possible to eliminate processing solutions altogether, or alternatively, to minimize the amount of processing solutions and the complex chemicals contained therein. A photothermographic (PTG) film by definition is a film that requires energy, typically heat, to effectuate development. A dry PTG film requires only heat; a solution-minimized PTG film may require small amounts of aqueous alkaline solution to effectuate development, which amounts may be only that required to swell the film without excess solution. Development is the process whereby silver ion is reduced to metallic silver and, in a color system, a dye is created in an image-wise fashion.
In PTG films, the silver metal and silver halide is typically retained in the coating after the heat development. It can be difficult to scan through imagewise exposed and photochemically processed silver-halide films when the undeveloped silver halide is not removed from the film during processing. The retained silver halide is reflective, and this reflectivity appears as density in a scanner. The retained silver halide scatters light, decreasing sharpness and raising the overall density of the film, to the point in high-silver films of making the film unsuitable for scanning. High densities result in the introduction of Poisson noise into the electronic form of the scanned image, and this in turn results in decreased image quality. The high density can also increase the time required to scan a given image. If, on the other hand, a scanner is designed with a more powerful light source in order to negate the effects of the film turbidity, scanner cost is increased. In addition, the high reflectivity of a retained silver film can cause reflection of light back in the light source of the scanner, which can degrade the uniformity of the scanner illumination system or cause increased flare.
Even conventional color photographic film could be scanned after conventional development, before removing all of the silver halide or silver metal. While still involving some processing solution, for example, a developer solution, the elimination of post-processing solutions, prior to the production of a viewable image, would allow processing to be accomplished in kiosks or the like, with minimal quantities of solution in a matter of minutes. For example, a minimal amount of developer solution could be sprayed or applied via a laminate.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to improve the scanning of photothermographic film or photographic without removing the silver halide and/or metallic silver, or partially removing the same.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It has been found that the reflectivity of retained silver halide is quite dependent on wavelength and that blue light is more reflected than green light which in turn is more reflected than red light which in turn is more reflected than infrared light. Accordingly, it has been found that the expedient of forming at least one image record in the infrared region of the light spectrum leads to the formation of higher quality images. Furthermore, it has now been found that improved image formation is obtained when the infrared dye-forming compound is in a blue-light sensitive layer, improved image formation is obtained. In a typical film, the blue record offers the highest challenge for scanning. This is believed to result from three sources: (1) as mentioned above, the physics of light scatter which indicates that the highest degree of scatter occurs in the blue region of the visible spectrum; (2) the most commonly used silver halide crystal for photographic films which are composed of silver bromide with small concentrations of silver iodide, a composition that absorbs significant blue light; (3) the intrinsic sensitivity produced by (2), for which reason it is common to use a yellow filter record below the blue record that prevents sensitivity of the green and red records to blue light, which filter layer itself produces additional density in the blue region of the spectrum.
In one embodiment of the invention, the infrared dye-image is obtained by record shifting wherein the light-sensitive photographic element (generic to both photothermographic and non-photothermographic elements) comprises a blue light-sensitive layer unit having an infrared dye-forming agent, a green light-sensitive layer having a magenta dye-forming agent, and a red light-sensitive layer having an cyan dye-forming agent. The “dye-forming agent” includes couplers, either hue-shifted couplers or non-hue shifted coupler, which react with a developer to form infrared dye, or preformed dyes or leuco dyes, which do not require a developer to form an infrared dye.
In another embodiment of the invention, more than one infrared dye-image is obtained, also by record shifting, wherein the light-sensitive photographic element record comprises a light-sensitive color element having a blue light-sensitive layer unit having a far infrared dye-forming agent, and a re
Kulpinski Robert W.
Levy David H.
Olson Leif P.
Reynolds James H.
Slusarek Wojciech K.
Chea Thorl
Eastman Kodak Company
Konkol Chris P.
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