JP2006074199A - Record medium and photograph system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a record medium and a photograph system which recommend the creation of a commodity using a print of an electronic photograph with high quality and the electronic photograph. <P>SOLUTION: The record medium 2 is formed of a picture area X where picture data formed of picture data of the electronic photograph are recorded and a sum nail area Y where sum nail data formed of picture data of a sum nail picture generated by thinning the electronic photograph so that it cannot be printed with photograph picture quality are recorded. Picture data are used for the print of the electronic photograph with photograph picture quality, and sum nail data are used for reading the electronic photograph. Picture data ciphered so that decoding is made necessary for the purpose of reading picture data are recorded in the picture area X. Thus, a device that can print the electronic photograph is limited. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a recording medium and a photographic system that can be delivered and record at least electrophotographic image data.

  Conventionally, silver salt photographs have been superior in image quality compared to electrophotography, and silver salt photographs have been used for photography in a photo studio. Also, in recent years, in photo studios, when shooting a person, the same shooting content (meaning a combination of a person to be shot, a pose, a costume, etc.) has been shot a plurality (usually 4-5), There is a service that allows a customer to select a desired photo from among them and develops only the photo selected by the customer. In such a photo studio, a photographic system using two cameras, a main camera for taking a silver halide photograph and an auxiliary camera for taking an electronic photograph, is employed. The auxiliary camera captures the same area as the main camera at the same time as capturing with the main camera. Since the electronic photograph can be displayed on the display device immediately after photographing to confirm the image appearance, the image appearance can be confirmed with reference to the electronic photograph. In this way, the film of the photograph in which the image quality is confirmed is sent to the developing station, where only the photograph selected by the customer can be developed and made into a product such as an album (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

  On the other hand, since the image quality of electrophotography has improved in recent years and has become equal to or better than the image quality of silver halide photography, the photo studio takes only the electronic photograph to be photographed and uses the image data of this electrophotography to produce high-quality electronic images. The system is shifting to a photo system that prints photos. In this photographic system, a recording medium on which electrophotographic image data is recorded is used in place of the silver salt photographic negative, and the electrophotographic printing is performed in a specialized facility in place of the developer. A specialized facility is equipped with a dedicated printing device that can print an electronic photograph with high quality using image data recorded on a recording medium. The specialized facility prints an electronic photograph with high quality, such as an album. Can be tailored to goods. Here, if a recording medium such as a CD or DVD that can be delivered is used, the recording medium can be delivered to the customer, and the customer can view the electronic photograph using the image data recorded on the recording medium. After confirming the appearance of the electrophotographic image, it is possible to request the photo studio to print the desired electrophotographic image.

By the way, an electronic photograph taken in a photo studio has more than 10 million pixels so that it can be printed with a high quality photographic image quality even if it is cut into four sizes. It is a digital still camera for home use. The number of pixels is larger than that of an electrophotographic photograph. Therefore, in order to print an electronic photograph taken at a photo studio with high quality, it is necessary to use a dedicated printing apparatus with high resolution installed in a specialized facility as described above. In short, an electronic photograph taken in a photo studio can only achieve high quality printing by requesting the photo studio to print. Also, when a product such as an album is created using an electronic photograph, it is possible to provide a higher quality product that uses a member such as an album mount defined in a specialized facility.
JP 2002-350965 A (page 3, FIG. 1)

  However, as described above, when the recording medium on which the image data of electrophotography is recorded is delivered to the customer, even if the customer tries to print the electrophotography using the image data recorded on the recording medium, a dedicated printing apparatus is used. Since it cannot be used, printed electronic photographs that are taken at a photo studio will be of low quality. In addition, since the amount of electrophotographic image data is extremely large, the burden on the apparatus is large when printing is performed by a device other than the dedicated printing device.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above reasons, and an object of the present invention is to provide a recording medium and a photographic system that recommend the production of a high-quality electrophotographic print and a product using the electrophotographic.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is a main image area which is composed of image data of electrophotography and used for printing at least photographic image quality, and cannot be printed with photographic image quality on the electrophotography. The main image area includes a transferable medium body having image data of thumbnail images generated by performing thinning processing as described above and at least a thumbnail area in which thumbnail data used for browsing the electronic photograph is recorded. Is recorded with the main image data encrypted so as to require decryption in order to read out the main image data.

  According to this configuration, it is possible to print an electronic photograph with photographic quality using the main image data, and it is possible to browse the electronic photograph using thumbnail data. However, since decryption is required to read out the main image data, it is possible to limit the apparatus for printing electronic photographs, and as a result, it is recommended to create high-quality electronic photographs and albums. It can be done.

  According to a second aspect of the invention, in the first aspect of the invention, the medium body is readable by a computer.

  According to this configuration, it is possible to employ a recording medium that is generally widespread, such as a writable CD or DVD, for example, in the medium body, so that the invention of claim 1 can be realized at a relatively low cost. .

  According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the invention of the second aspect, an activation program that automatically activates a browsing program used for browsing the electronic photograph using the thumbnail data when the medium body is read is recorded. An application area is provided.

  According to this configuration, since the browsing program is automatically started when the medium body is read, it is possible to easily browse the thumbnail data simply by reading the medium body with a computer.

  According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the invention according to any one of the first to third aspects, the main image data recorded in the main image area is data that can be printed in a size of four electrophotographic photographs and can be printed with photographic quality. The amount of thumbnail data recorded in the thumbnail area is set so as not to exceed 300 KB per electrophotographic image.

  According to this configuration, an electrophotographic image can be printed with a photographic quality even when the size is cut into four. Further, since the data amount of the thumbnail data is set to be relatively small, a relatively large amount of main image data and thumbnail data of an electronic photograph can be recorded.

  A fifth aspect of the present invention is a photographic system using the recording medium according to any one of the first to fourth aspects, wherein the photographic subject is photographed as an electronic photograph, and a plurality of photographs photographed by the camera. A recording device that records the main image data and thumbnail data of a single electrophotographic image on the recording medium, and is operated to select a desired electrophotographic image from a plurality of electrophotographic images photographed by a camera. And a selection device for displaying the selected electrophotographic image on the display device using the main image data.

  According to this configuration, by recording the main image data and thumbnail data of the electronic photograph taken by the camera on the recording medium by the recording device, it is possible to print the electronic photograph with a photographic quality by using the main image data. Therefore, it is possible to browse electronic photographs using thumbnail data. However, since decryption is required to read out the main image data, it is possible to limit the apparatus for printing electronic photographs, and as a result, it is recommended to create high-quality electronic photographs and albums. It can be done. In addition, since the electronic image can be browsed using the main image data by the selection device, the desired electronic photograph can be confirmed by checking the appearance of the electronic photograph with better image quality than when browsing the electronic photograph using the thumbnail data. Can be selected.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to print an electronic photograph with photographic image quality using the main image data, and it is possible to browse the electronic photograph using thumbnail data. However, since decryption is required to read out the main image data, it is possible to limit the apparatus for printing electronic photographs, and as a result, it is recommended to create high-quality electronic photographs and albums. There is an advantage that can be.

  In this embodiment, first, a photographic system that is used when an electronic photograph is taken at a photo studio and the electronic photograph is printed at a specialized facility provided separately from the photo studio will be described. In the photo studio, the same shooting content (which means a combination of the person, pose, and costume to be shot) is shot multiple (4 to 5) at a time, and the desired electronic photograph is selected from these. Printed at specialized facilities.

  In the photo studio A, as shown in FIG. 2, a camera (digital still camera) 1 for taking an electrophotograph and a recording apparatus for recording image data of a plurality of electrophotographic images taken by the camera 1 on a recording medium 2 3 are installed. On the other hand, a dedicated printing apparatus 4 capable of high-quality printing with high resolution is installed in the specialized facility B.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the recording medium 2 used in this photographic system browses at least a main image area X in which main image data used for printing an electronic photograph at a photographic quality is recorded, and at least an electronic photograph. And a thumbnail area Y in which thumbnail data used for the recording is recorded. The main image data is image data of an electronic photograph, and the thumbnail data is image data of a thumbnail image generated by performing a thinning process on the electronic photograph.

  By the way, the photographic system of this embodiment requires a specific device to print an electrophotographic image using the main image data recorded on the recording medium 2. Specifically, the main image data encrypted so as to require decryption in order to read the main image data from the recording medium 2 is recorded in the main image area X of the recording medium 2, and the main image data is stored in the main image data. In order to read from the recording medium 2, a reading device 5 that decodes and reads the main image data is necessary. In other words, electrophotographic printing using the main image data can be performed only when the reading device 5 is used. In the photographic system, the reading device 5 is provided in the specialized facility B and connected to the printing device 4 so that the specialized facility B can print an electrophotographic image using the main image data.

  In addition, the thumbnail image is generated by performing thinning processing on the electronic photograph as described above in the recording device 3 and has a smaller number of pixels than the electronic photograph. Therefore, the thumbnail photograph is used to photograph the electronic photograph. You cannot print with image quality. In short, it is possible to print an electronic photograph using thumbnail data, but an electronic photograph printed using thumbnail data is not of photographic quality, and is inferior in quality to an electronic photograph printed using this image data. .

  Further, the above-described reading device 5 is also installed in the photo studio A, and the photo studio A selects a desired electrophotographic image from a plurality of electrophotographic images in which image data is recorded on the recording medium 2. A selection device 7 is provided for displaying the selected electrophotographic image on the display device 6 using the main image data read from the recording medium 2 by the reading device 5. The recording device 3 and the reading device 5 may be integrated. The selection device 7 displays an electronic photograph taken with respect to the same photographing content in each divided area of the display device 6 whose screen is divided into a plurality of portions, and displays an electronic photograph selected from these in a full screen. Is. As a result, in the photo studio A, it is possible to view the electronic photograph using the main image data, so that it is possible to check the state of the electrophotographic image with better image quality than when viewing the electronic photograph using the thumbnail data. You can select an electronic photo.

  Here, an identification code that can identify the electronic photograph selected by the selection device 7 by a customer, a photographed person, a pose, a costume, and the like, and the order contents to be notified to the specialized facility B when printing the electronic photograph, An order form is created with The contents of the order include the finishing form that determines the finishing form, which determines the print size, the type of mount, or the form of the product such as other albums or keychains of photographs, and the number of prints.

  Further, the recording medium 2 includes a medium body that can be transferred, and it is desirable to use a medium having a relatively large capacity such as a writable CD or DVD because image data is recorded in the medium body. In the present embodiment, a computer-readable CD such as a CD-R is employed as the medium body.

  By adopting the above-described photographic system, it is possible to record the main image data and the thumbnail data on the recording medium 2 by the recording device 3 after taking an electronic photograph in the photo studio A, and pass this recording medium 2 to the customer. As a result, the customer can browse the electronic photograph using the thumbnail data recorded on the recording medium 2 and select a desired electronic photograph having a good image quality. When printing an electronic photograph, the customer brings the recording medium 2 into the photo studio A, specifies the desired electronic photo, and the recording medium 2 and the order slip are sent from the photo studio A to the specialized facility B. In the special facility B, a high-quality electronic photograph is printed according to the contents of the order form. Furthermore, in the specialized facility B, it is possible to create products such as albums according to the order contents of the order form. In this case, since members such as album mounts defined in the specialized facility B are used, high quality Products can be provided.

  Further, a communication device (not shown) connected to each other via the network is installed in each of the photo studio A and the specialized facility B, and the main image data read from the recording medium 2 in the photo studio A is connected to the network. It is also possible to transmit the image to the specialized facility B, whereby an electronic photograph can be printed at the specialized facility B without sending the recording medium 2 from the photo studio A to the specialized facility B. Furthermore, when the photo studio A and the specialized facility B can communicate with each other, an electronic order form creation device (not shown) for creating an order form as an electronic order form composed of electronic data is installed in the photo studio A. By sending an electronic order form together with the actual image data from the photo studio A to the specialized facility B, the photo studio A requests the specialized facility B to print the electronic photo and the printing is completed. It is desirable to reduce the time required.

  In addition to the main image area X and the thumbnail area Y, the recording medium 2 has an activation program that activates a browsing program used to browse an electronic photograph using thumbnail data, as shown in FIG. It is desirable to provide an application area Z in which is recorded. The startup program automatically starts the browsing program when the medium body is read. Thus, the thumbnail data can be browsed simply by reading the medium body with a computer. It becomes easier to view photos. However, the browsing program may be recorded together with the activation program in the application area Z, or may be recorded on a recording medium different from the recording medium 2 on which the image data is recorded, or downloaded from a specific server. It may be a form. The activation program may be recorded by the recording device 3 together with the main image data and the thumbnail data, or may be recorded in advance before the main image data and the thumbnail data are recorded.

  In this embodiment, the amount of data of the main image data is set to about 20 MB per electrophotographic image so that even if the main image data is used, the electrophotographic image can be printed with a photo quality even if the size is cut into four. It is. On the other hand, the data amount of the thumbnail data is such that it is possible to check the state of the electrophotographic image even if it is not possible to print the electronic photo with the image quality using the thumbnail data. It is set to about 200 KB to 300 KB. The data amount of the thumbnail data is desirably set so as not to exceed 300 KB. Here, as shown in FIG. 1, the main image area X is set to 500 MB, the thumbnail data Y is set to 20 MB, and the application area Z is set to 120 MB.

  By the way, in the photo studio A, it is desirable to store the image data of the electrophotography for more than one year in order to respond to the order of reprinting the electrophotography. The amount of image data stored in the photo studio A is (number of customer groups for one year) × (number of electronic photographs taken by one customer group) × (data amount of image data per electronic photograph = 20 MB) Assuming that 2500 customers take 40 pictures each year, it will be an enormous size of 2TB. Therefore, in the photo studio A, there is a huge capacity of memory, a backup recording medium, etc. The burden to prepare arises. Further, in the photo studio A that is chain-expanded, the amount of data to be stored is 2 TB multiplied by the number of stores, so if the number of stores is assumed to be 300, the size becomes 600 TB. Therefore, if the reprinting of electrophotography is taken into consideration, the customer can store the recording medium 2 and use the main image data recorded on the recording medium 2 to perform the reprinting at any time. It is desirable to eliminate the burden of data storage.

  Note that a dedicated printing device 4 may be provided in the photo studio A so that high-quality printing can be performed in the photo studio A. In addition, the method of browsing the electronic photograph using the thumbnail data is not particularly limited. For example, when the recording medium 2 is a DVD that can be reproduced by a DVD player, the DVD is reproduced by the DVD player and the electronic photograph is displayed on the television screen. May be displayed.

It is explanatory drawing which shows the content of the recording medium of embodiment of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows a photography system same as the above.

Explanation of symbols

1 Camera 2 Recording medium 3 Recording device 6 Display device 7 Selection device X Main image area Y Thumbnail area Z Application area

Claims (5)

  A main image area that is composed of image data of electrophotography and is used to print at least the image quality of an electrophotographic image, and a thinning process is performed so that the image cannot be printed at the image quality. A medium body capable of delivery having at least a thumbnail area in which thumbnail data used for browsing the electronic photograph is recorded, and reading the main image data in the main image area. A recording medium on which main image data encrypted so as to require decryption is recorded.   The recording medium according to claim 1, wherein the medium body is readable by a computer.   3. An application area for recording an activation program that automatically activates a browsing program used for browsing the electronic photograph using the thumbnail data when the medium body is read. The recording medium described.   The main image data recorded in the main image area is set to an amount of data that can be printed in a size of four in the size of an electronic photograph, and the thumbnail data recorded in the thumbnail area is an electronic photograph. The recording medium according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the recording medium is set so as not to exceed 300 KB per sheet.   5. A photographic system using the recording medium according to claim 1, wherein the book includes a camera that shoots an object to be photographed as an electronic photograph, and a plurality of electronic photographs photographed by the camera. A recording apparatus for recording image data and thumbnail data on the recording medium, and a display for displaying the selected electrophotographic image that is operated to select a desired electrophotographic image from a plurality of electrophotographic images captured by a camera A photographic system comprising: a selection device for displaying the image data on the device.

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