Radiation imagery chemistry: process – composition – or product th – Regenerating image processing composition – Developer
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-16
2002-03-26
Le, Hoa Van (Department: 1752)
Radiation imagery chemistry: process, composition, or product th
Regenerating image processing composition
Developer
Reexamination Certificate
active
06361930
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for processing silver halide color photographic light sensitive materials, more specifically, the present invention relates to a processing method where even when light-sensitive materials having emulsions different in the silver halide composition and being different in the development behavior are processed in mixture, excellent photographic properties of respective light-sensitive materials can be maintained. The present invention provides a processing method and a processing apparatus, which can simultaneously process light-sensitive materials having emulsions different in the silver halide composition by a simple modification.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Among silver halide color photographic light-sensitive materials, the photographic film light-sensitive material for use in taking a picture by camera work (hereinafter sometimes referred to as a “film”) is large in the coated silver amount as compared with printing materials (hereinafter sometimes referred to as a “print”), therefore, a large load is imposed on the development step or desilvering step and the development processing time is generally long.
In recent years, color laboratories are overspread and small color laboratories called mini-lab for performing the development processing (hereinafter simply referred to as “processing”) at the shop-front of photographic shops in the city are increased. Thus, the tendency is apparently turning from conventional collection-and-delivery processing which is conditioned on collection and delivery, to the shop-front processing performed at the mini-lab. In the shop-front processing, reduction in the time until finish and delivery is particularly a matter of importance. Among the processing operations, the processing of a film takes a long time and reduction in the time necessary for this processing is demanded.
In order to shorten the film processing step, a film containing a high silver chloride emulsion in which the main component of silver halide is silver chloride is disclosed to take the place of conventional films containing a high silver bromide emulsion in which the main component of silver halide is silver bromide. As compared with the latter case, the emulsion in the former film has excellent effect in attaining a rapid processing or reducing the replenishing amount, because the reaction rate at the development is high and iodide ion working out to an inhibitor at the fixing processing is scarcely released. With respect to the example of this high silver chloride emulsion, JP-A-63-2129932 (the term “JP-A” as used herein means an “unexamined published Japanese patent application”) discloses a technique containing a high silver chloride emulsion having a (111) face and U.S. Pat. No. 5,264,337 discloses a tabular emulsion having a (100) face.
The material for photographing (i.e., film) using this high silver chloride emulsion has a possibility that it can be processed with a processing solution common to that for color paper (print) which similarly uses a high silver chloride emulsion. EP-617325A and JP-A-7-270991 disclose this technique.
Although the high silver chloride-type photographing material is advantageous in its excellent rapid developability, the current color photographic and color laboratory market is constructed by high silver bromide-type photographing materials and a system for developing the high silver chloride-type photographing material is not present. If a high silver chloride-type photographing material is introduced, propagated and raised to a predominant photographing material in the market and along with it, an exclusive development service network is completed, users could enjoy many merits. However, at the initial stage in the introduction of high silver chloride photographing materials, since a satisfactory development service network capable of coping with the new processing for the photographing materials introduced is not established, the development service thereof must be furnished by the existing processing system for films using a high silver bromide emulsion. In other words, at the initial stage in the introduction of high silver chloride photographing materials, it is anticipated that new and old light-sensitive materials are processed in mixture. In this case, the composition of the color developer greatly changes, particularly, the bromide ion concentration greatly changes, to cause extreme fluctuation in the photographic properties (particularly sensitivity and gradation) of both the light-sensitive material having a silver iodobromide emulsion and the light-sensitive material having a high silver chloride emulsion, therefore, the photographic performance cannot be maintained and a countermeasure therefor is necessary. Needless to say, when the switch to the photographing materials having a high silver chloride emulsion is completed on the market, the development processing thereof can be dedicatedly performed and the above-described problem can be overcome.
At the stage of introducing high silver chloride photographing materials, even when the processing thereof must be shared with conventional high silver chloride photographing materials, if the replenisher for conventional high silver chloride photographing materials can be used, the difficulties standing as an obstacle to the introduction of the new photographing material can be eliminated. Under these circumstances, a new replenishing system capable of realizing the common use of the replenisher is being demanded.
With respect to the apparatus for processing light-sensitive materials photographing, an apparatus described in JP-A-9-43806 may be used, for example. This apparatus comprises replenishing tanks for housing thick replenishers prepared by concentrating various processing solutions and a water replenishing tank for housing a diluting water for diluting the thick processing solution. In each replenishing or water replenishing tank, a passage line extending to the processing tank is provided. At the replenishing time, a pump provided to each passage line is operated and the thick replenishers and the diluting water can be fed to the processing tank to supply the developer replenisher. According to this apparatus, it is said that the processing solution stored in the processing tank can be prevented from the liquid exhaustion accompanying the processing and the water content evaporated can be supplemented.
However, even this development processing apparatus encounters difficulties in maintaining the photographic properties when the processing must be shared with conventional high silver bromide photographing materials at the stage of introducing high silver chloride photographing materials. Accordingly, a new replenishing system capable of correctly processing those two types of photographing materials is being demanded.
Furthermore, for example, JP-A-5-107712 describes an apparatus for processing light-sensitive materials for photographing. This apparatus comprises a processing tank for filling processing solutions for use in the processing of light-sensitive materials, an auxiliary tank for passing a processing solution into the processing tank, and a solid processing agent feeding unit for feeding a replenisher solid processing agent for maintaining the capability of the processing agent to the auxiliary tank, where the feeding unit is designed to work when the accumulated area of light-sensitive materials used reaches a predetermined value.
In addition, for example, JP-A-4-213454 describes an apparatus for processing light-sensitive materials for photographing. This apparatus comprises processing tanks for filling processing solutions for use in the processing of light-sensitive materials and an auxiliary tank for passing a processing solution to the processing tank, where the processing solution is obtained by dissolving a powdered processing agent in a solvent and an adding unit for adding the powdered processing agent to the auxiliary tank is provided.
Even in the processing appar
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