Radiation imagery chemistry: process – composition – or product th – Radiation sensitive product – Identified radiation sensitive composition with color...
Reexamination Certificate
2002-04-17
2003-07-29
Le, Hoa Van (Department: 1752)
Radiation imagery chemistry: process, composition, or product th
Radiation sensitive product
Identified radiation sensitive composition with color...
C430S503000, C430S504000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06599689
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a color negative photographic lightsensitive material substantially free from colored masking couplers. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a lightsensitive material that is suitable for digital scanning because it is substantially free from colored masking couplers. Especially, the present invention provides a light-sensitive material improved in sharpness, which is a drawback of lightsensitive materials free from colored couplers.
2. Description of the Related Art
With recent progress and spread of digital technology typified by personal computers as background, merits and necessity of converting images into digital files have increased rapidly. On the other hand, despite great improvements in technologies of digital still cameras and digital video cameras, it is difficult to ignore the advantages of silver halide photographs including high speed, wide latitude and improved infrastructure for them and, therefore, a method for obtaining a high-quality digital image file easily from a silver salt photographing material is awaited.
EP No. 1016911 (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. (hereinafter referred to as JP-A-) 11-174637) discloses an attempt to provide a lightsensitive material suitable for a digitization process, for example, an attempt to reduce reading load for a scanner by making a lightsensitive material have a composition substantially free from magenta colored Couplers and the like.
However, such lightsensitive materials substantially free from colored couplers have been found to be inferior to conventional lightsensitive materials in sharpness. Many people thought to be able to secure sharpness to some extent by image processing, such as “unsharp mask,” conducted after digitization. However, in fact, such processing necessarily has side effects (other deterioration of image quality) such as deterioration of graininess and unnatural finish, and the quality of prints obtained using such an improved lightsensitive material falls short of that of prints photographed using a lightsensitive material containing colored couplers with good sharpness.
Further, it is very important to manufacture products of the same performance with stability. Products are always required to exhibit only a small change in performance with external disturbance for production (for example, measurement fluctuations, temperature fluctuations and preparation time fluctuations).
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to eliminate the above-mentioned drawback of the lightsensitive materials substantially free from colored couplers, that is, the deterioration of sharpness and to provide a silver halide color negative photographic lightsensitive material superior in production stability.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an image processing method using the above silver halide color negative photographic lightsensitive material.
The above objects were attained using the following silver halide color negative photographic lightsensitive materials and image processing methods.
(1) A silver halide color negative photographic lightsensitive material comprising, on a support, at least one blue-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer, at least one green-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer and at least one red-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer, wherein
the total coating amount of colored couplers in the lightsensitive material is less than 0.05 mMol/m
2
, and
the lightsensitive material contains at least one spectrally sensitized silver halide emulsion and a compound capable of absorbing light within the spectrally sensitizing region of the spectrally sensitized silver halide emulsion, and capable of reducing the sensitivity of the spectrally sensitized silver halide emulsion by at least 0.05 LogE.
(2) The silver halide color negative photographic lightsensitive material recited in item (1) above, wherein the compound is capable of reducing the sensitivity of the spectrally sensitized silver halide emulsion by at least 0.10 LogE.
(3) The silver halide color negative photographic lightsensitive material recited in item (1) or (2) above, wherein the coating amount of the colored couplers is less than 0.02 mMol/m
2
.
(4) The silver halide color negative photographic lightsensitive material recited in any one of items (1) to (3) above, wherein the compound is capable of flowing out of the lightsensitive material during development process of the lightsensitive material.
(5) The silver halide color negative photographic lightsensitive material recited in any one of items (1) to (3) above, wherein the compound is capable of changing, during the development process of the lightsensitive material, into a compound absorbing substantially no light within the spectrally sensitizing region of the spectrally sensitized silver halide emulsion.
(6) An image processing method comprising: reading image information signals after developing the silver halide color negative photographic light-sensitive material recited in any one of items (1) to (5) above, and regulating the image information signals to output an image.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention, and together with the general description given above and the detailed description of the embodiments given below, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
The single FIGURE shows an embodiment of an image processing system according to the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The term “color negative photographic lightsensitive material” used in the present invention designates such a lightsensitive material that an image resulting from a development process is a negative/positive-reversed color image. When a color negative photographic lightsensitive material is used as a lightsensitive material for photographing, it cannot be appreciated as it is. There is a necessity of printing on a color paper or observing with CRT after electrical conversion.
On the other hand, because a color negative photographic lightsensitive material itself is not observed directly, it has some merits, e.g., securing wide latitude. One of the important merits is that no problem will arise even if an unexposed portion of a lightsensitive material after a development process has a “color”. Therefore, colored functional materials such as colored couplers described later can be used. Colored functional materials never can be used in lightsensitive materials to be observed as it is because white has to look white.
Incidentally, with the recent progress in computer technology and the like, digitization of images has been required. Merits of digitization of images include:
(1) conversion of images into digital data makes image processing or the like easy; and
(2) use of digital printers stabilizes and improves print quality.
A general way for digitizing an image resulting from the development of a photographic lightsensitive material is a method of reading the image by digital scanning using a scanner. Concrete examples of this method include the following embodiment.
The single Figure shows an image processing system
10
to which the present invention may be applied. The image processing system
10
has a structure in which a film scanner
12
, an image processing unit
14
and a printer
16
are connected in series.
The film scanner
12
is a device that reads a film image recorded on a color negative photographic material
26
(a negative image that has been visualized through development after photog
Matsumoto Keisuke
Nozawa Yasushi
Tamaoki Hiroshi
Fuji Photo Film Co. , Ltd.
Le Hoa Van
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