JP3504375B2 - Multicolor thermal / thermal transfer recording method, apparatus and thermal transfer donor sheet - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a multicolor thermosensitive / thermal transfer recording method, apparatus, and thermal transfer donor sheet for performing multicolor recording by using thermal recording and thermal transfer recording together.
It is related to

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A thermal recording head is used for thermal recording on a thermal recording sheet, and a thermal transfer donor sheet (hereinafter referred to as an ink ribbon) is superposed on the thermal recording sheet for thermal transfer recording. A recording device having an increased number of colors has been proposed (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 57-21 / 1987).
0872).

The previously proposed one is a red ink ribbon,
The three primary colors of blue and yellow and colorless areas are provided at regular intervals (referred to as full-color method). Then, an area of any color of the ink ribbon is guided between the heat generating head and the heat-sensitive recording sheet for printing. That is,
The red, blue, and yellow areas of the ink ribbon are selectively overlapped on the heat-sensitive recording sheet and heated by the heat generating head, whereby the ink of the ink ribbon is thermally transferred to the heat-sensitive recording sheet. In addition, the colorless area of the ink ribbon is superposed on the heat-sensitive recording sheet and heated by the heat-generating head to develop the color of the heat-sensitive sheet.

[0004]

However, in this method, the heat generated when the ink ribbon is thermally transferred causes the heat-sensitive recording layer of the heat-sensitive recording sheet to develop color at the same time. For this reason, there is a problem in that the color formed by thermal transfer and the color formed by heat are overlapped and the colors are mixed, so that it is impossible to obtain a clean color.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and provides a multicolor heat-sensitive / heat-transfer recording method capable of producing beautiful colors without color mixture of heat-sensitive recording and heat-transfer recording. The first purpose is to provide. Multicolor thermal transfer directly used to implement this method
A second object is to provide a recording device. Again this
Provide a thermal transfer donor sheet for direct use in performing the method
The third purpose is to do so.

[0006]

According to the present invention, a first object is to provide a support.
A thermal recording sheet on which a thermal recording layer has been formed
Enables multicolor recording by using transfer recording together
In a multicolor thermal / thermal transfer recording device, a thermal transfer donor sheet
Desensitization that suppresses color development of the thermal recording layer of the thermal recording sheet
If you add a colored substance and a colored dye or pigment,
After thermal recording, using the thermal transfer donor sheet
Multi-color heat sensitive / thermal transfer recording characterized by performing thermal transfer recording
It is achieved by the recording method .

A second object of the present invention is to provide a multi-color heat / heat transfer recording apparatus which enables multi-color recording by using heat-sensitive recording and heat-transfer recording together on a heat-sensitive recording sheet having a heat-sensitive recording layer formed on a support. A print head that faces the heat-sensitive recording layer of the heat-sensitive recording sheet and that reciprocates within a fixed distance in a direction orthogonal to the feeding direction of the heat-sensitive recording sheet, and for heat-sensitive recording and thermal transfer recording provided on the print head. Of each heating head, the thermal transfer layer provided between the thermal recording sheet and the thermal transfer recording heating head and thermally transferred by the thermal transfer recording heating head contains a desensitizing substance for suppressing color development of the thermal recording layer. a thermal transfer donor sheet, wherein the recording area in advance thermal recording using a thermosensitive recording heating head in the same print head for thermal transfer recording fever head and Netsuten Multicolor thermosensitive-transfer recording apparatus characterized by comprising a print control means for performing thermal transfer recording by overlapping with the donor sheet, is achieved by.

[0008] Thermal recording heating head may be arranged in the moving direction of the print head so as to record ahead for thermal transfer recording heating head, it may be previously shifted in the feed direction of the recording sheet. In the former case, while the print head moves in one direction with respect to the same recording area, the thermal recording is continuously performed for a predetermined time ahead of the thermal transfer recording , so that the print head runs in one direction. one recording area to be multi-colored printing, print time becomes shorter. Note that thermal recording may be performed on the outward path of the print head and thermal transfer recording may be performed on the return path.

In the latter case where the heating head is displaced in the feeding direction of the recording sheet, the heating head can be fed in the same phase in the print head moving direction. In order to increase the print colors, it is desirable that the color developed by the heat-sensitive recording sheet and the color printed by thermal transfer recording be different. The number of colors obtained by thermal transfer may be one or may be plural. For example, the three primary colors of red, green, and blue can be used, and the color of the thermal recording paper can be black.

A third object is the multicolor heat-sensitive / heat transfer of claim 1.
A thermal transfer donor sheet for use in a copying method, which is a support
And a thermal transfer layer, the thermal transfer layer being a thermal recording sheet.
Desensitizing substance that suppresses the color development of the heat-sensitive recording layer, and a colored dye
And at least one of colored pigments,
Thermal transfer donor sheet.

[0011]

1 is a perspective view of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing its internal structure, FIG. 3 is a side perspective view, and FIG. 4 is a front perspective view. FIG. 5 is a view showing a print operation panel provided on the upper surface of the pressing cover of the scanner, FIG.
7 is a diagram showing a coloring operation panel, FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a control system, FIG. 8 is a flow chart of a typical coloring process, and FIG.
Is a layout diagram of the print head, FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an operation example of the print head, FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram of the printing principle, and FIG.
Is a flow chart of the operation of the printer.

[0012]

[Outline of Apparatus] First, the arrangement structure of each unit of the image processing apparatus will be described with reference to FIGS. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 10 is a horizontally long casing, the upper surface of which is a lid 12 that can be opened and closed upward.
Has become.

A printer 14 is housed inside the housing 10 as shown in FIGS. The printer 14 has a paper roll 16 and a platen 18 which are arranged side by side in parallel. The platen 18 is located on the front side of the paper roll 16, and the paper 20 pulled out from the lower edge of the paper roll 16 is wound around the platen 18 and guided downward from the front edge of the platen 18. A pinch roller 19 presses the paper 20 against the platen 18.

The paper 20 can be ejected from below the front surface of the housing 10 by guide rollers 22 and 24. The platen 18 is belt-driven by the feed motor 26, and feeds the paper 20 in the feeding direction or the rewinding direction to position it.

The printer 14 has three print heads 28 (28) that run left and right along the front surface of the platen 18.
a, 28b, 28c). The print head 28 is guided by the guide rod 30, and the carriage motor 32
It is sent to the left and right by the belt 34 wrapped around the. The print head 28 is of a multi-color heat-sensitive / thermal-transfer recording method, which will be described later, and has a total print width 3D (FIG. 4) of the paper 20 of 3 mm.
It moves at intervals D so as to be equally divided, and the right end of each moving range is set to the return position (home position, HP).

The paper 20 used in the printer 14 is a thermosensitive recording sheet, and for example, a paper which thermally develops black on a white background is used. To each print head 28, an ink ribbon (thermal transfer donor sheet) of one or a plurality of colors different from the heat-sensitive coloring of the paper 20 and a plurality of heating heads are attached. Its structure will be described later. In FIG. 4, reference numeral 36 denotes a print area (recording area) by the print head 28.

In FIG. 3, reference numeral 40 is a cutter, which is a platen 18.
And cuts the print paper 20 below. That is, the fixed blade and the movable blade face each other across the paper 20,
When the movable blade is moved by the motor, it moves to the fixed blade side to cut the paper 20.

Reference numeral 42 denotes a scanner, which is located near the center of the upper surface of the lid 12. As shown in FIG. 4, the scanner 42 has a holding lid 44 placed on the lid 12 from above, and a document 46 is sandwiched between the holding lid 44 and the lid 12 of the housing 10 to feed from the right to the left. Mechanism and C housed in housing 10
A CD line sensor 48 and an optical system for guiding an image on a main scanning line orthogonal to the conveyance direction of the document 46 to the line sensor 48 are provided.

As shown in FIG. 4, the transport mechanism is composed of four feed rollers 50 that feed the document 46 from above and below and feeds it from right to left. The two rollers 50 on the housing 10 side are motors (not shown). It is driven to rotate by. The optical system is composed of an appropriate number of mirrors 52 and lenses 54. Reference numeral 56 is a light source.

Reference numeral 58 is a digitizer, and this scanner 4
The lid 12 is adjacent to the input side of the second document 46, that is, the right side.
Is provided on the upper surface of. The digitizer 58 includes a coordinate detecting tablet 60 and a stylus pen 62 as shown in FIG. The tablet 60 has a resistor that spreads over the entire surface.
The coordinates are detected from the change in the resistance value when 0 is pressed. In the tablet 60, for example, the upper right corner is determined as the reference position, and the upper right corner of the document 46 is aligned and fixed to the reference position.

Reference numeral 64 is a print operation panel for instructing print data, and 66 is a coloring operation panel, which are attached to the upper surface of the holding lid 44 of the scanner 42.
That is, as shown in FIG. 1, the coloring operation panel 66 is arranged on the back side of the upper surface of the pressing plate 44, and the print operation panel 64 is arranged on the front side thereof. These operation panels 64,
The operation of 66 will be described later.

The printer 14, the scanner 42, the digitizer 58, the operation panels 64, 66, etc. are connected to the bus 70 via interfaces 68a-68d (FIG. 7).

The bus 70 also has a CPU 72 and a ROM 7.
4, RAM 76, etc. are connected. ROM74 has CP
The operation program of U72 and various constants are stored in memory. The CPU 72 serves as a control device 78 (FIGS. 2 and 4) that performs various controls according to this operation program.
It also serves as a control device for the printer 14. The control device 78 performs control according to the operation flow chart of FIG. 8 when operating the image processing device, and controls each print head 28 according to FIG. 12 at the time of printing.

[0024]

[Coloring Editing Operation] Next, the operation of the coloring editing process according to this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. First, when the past coloring data remains, the coloring data display LED 102 (FIG. 6) of the operation panel 66 is turned on. Therefore, if this LED 102 is turned on, the all clear key 100 of the operation panel 66 is pressed. Press to erase this past coloring data. When no color is added, that is, when printing is performed in a single color (single color mode) (step 200), the document 46 is set on the scanner 42 as it is (step 21).
2) Print it.

The printer 14 according to the present invention uses both thermal recording using a thermal recording sheet and thermal transfer recording using an ink ribbon. Therefore, the color designation key group 104 includes the key groups (1, 2, 3) for thermal transfer recording,
It has a key group (4) for thermal paper density separately. Therefore, if coloring of the heat-sensitive recording is performed, select the appropriate density (A to D) in the key group (4), and if performing coloring by thermal transfer, select the appropriate density (A to E) of the key group (1 to 3). do it. The key groups (1, 2, 3) are, for example, red,
The color is green, blue, or the like, and corresponds to the color of the ink ribbon set on the print head 28 described later.

If multicolor coloring is to be performed (step 200), the document 46 is set on the digitizer 58 (step 202). That is, the document 46 is placed face up on the tablet 60, and its upper right corner is aligned with the reference position (upper right corner) of the tablet 60. Next, the mode of the coloring method is selected to either color conversion or background color (step 204). This mode selection is performed by the switch key 106. That is, each time the switch key 106 is pressed, the LED 108a indicating the color conversion mode and the L indicating the background color mode are displayed.
The ED 108b and the ED 108b are alternately turned on, and the selected mode can be known. The color conversion mode is for converting the color of the image (black portion of the document) whose coordinates are input as described later. The background color mode is for inputting the color of the background (white portion of the document) of the area for which coordinates have been input.

Next, the coordinates of the area to be colored are input by the digitizer 58 (step 206). For example, when coloring an image (color conversion mode), an area including the image to be colored is designated. If this area is a square, the area is designated by designating two points at the diagonal positions. This area may specify a polygonal area by connecting a number of points. In the case of background painting, the area is designated in the same way.

After inputting the coordinates as described above, the color of the area is designated by using the key group 104 (step 208). By repeating the above steps 204 to 208 until all coloring is completed, coloring editing is performed on all images and regions (step 21).
0), and the result is stored in the RAM 76 or the like. That is, data regarding coordinates and colors is stored. When the coloring and editing is completed (step 210), the printing operation is started.

First, the document 46 is set on the scanner 42 with its image side facing down (step 212), and the printing conditions are set on the operation panel 64 (step 214).
That is, the output mode of standard output, photographic output or reverse output is selected with the key 110, the document density is set with the key 112, and the print size is set with the key 114. When it is desired to confirm the print result obtained by these settings before the actual print, the confirmation print key 116 is pressed (step 216).

Then, the scanner 42 starts to operate and the original 4
The image No. 6 is read, and an image smaller than the actual print (for example, A7 size) is printed out (step 21).
8). In this printing operation, the image being read is colored in parallel with the coloring data already input. That is, the operation is performed so that the printer 14 prints while interlocking with the scanner 42.

By looking at the result of the confirmation print thus output in a small size, if there is further correction, the color is edited again for the corrected portion. In order to perform the actual printing, the document 46 is set again on the scanner 42 (step 220),
Press the start / stop key 118. Then the manuscript 46
While being read by the scanner 42, coloring processing is simultaneously performed in parallel and printed out (step 22).
2). In this way, since the original document 46 is read by the scanner 42 and output in parallel to the printer 14, the capacity of the image memory can be reduced.

[0032]

[Printer] Next, the printer 14 for performing multicolor heat / thermal transfer recording will be described. The printer 14 uses heat-sensitive paper as the print paper 20, and also performs thermal transfer with a thermal transfer ink ribbon in an overlapping manner. Each of the three print heads 28 has one heating head 15
0 and three ribbon cases 152 (152a, 152a
b, 152c). These ribbon cases 15
Ink ribbon accommodated in 2 (thermal transfer recording donor sheet)
154 is a color designation key group 1 of the coloring operation panel 66
04 keys 1, 2 and 3 are provided separately for each color,
In this embodiment, there are three lines of red, green and blue.

As shown in FIGS. 9 and 10, each print head 28 is equipped with one thermal recording head 150a and a plurality of thermal transfer recording heat generating heads 150b.
The thermal transfer recording heating heads 150b are provided in the same number as the number of colors of the ink ribbons 154 used, that is, separately for each ribbon case 152. These heating heads 150
Various methods are possible for the arrangement of a and 150b.

The print head 28A shown in FIG. 9 has heating heads 150a, 150 in the moving direction of the print head 28A.
b is arranged in series. The print head 28B of FIG. 10 is arranged in the feeding direction of the paper 20 (direction of arrow A in the figure), and all the heat generating heads 150a and 150b are moved in parallel. In these cases, the heating head 1
Needless to say, 50a prints before the heating head 150b.

Therefore, in the case of the serial arrangement shown in FIG. 9, the heating head 150a is on the leading side and the heating head 150b is on the trailing side in the moving direction from the home position (HP) of the print head 28A. Similarly, in the case of the parallel arrangement of FIG. 10, the heating head 150a is on the front side and the heating head 150b is on the back side in the feeding direction of the paper 20. When the ink ribbons 154 have a plurality of colors, the ribbon cases 152 (152a, 152b, 152c) are arranged in series in FIG. 9 and arranged in parallel in FIG.

In the case of the serial arrangement shown in FIG. 9, the dimension of the print head 28A in the moving direction becomes long, but becomes small in the paper feeding direction. In the case of the parallel arrangement shown in FIG. 10, the size of the print head 28B in the moving direction becomes smaller, but the size in the paper feeding direction becomes larger. Which array is adopted can be determined by the shape of the housing space of the printer.

The paper 20 made of thermal paper has a support 20A and a thermal recording layer 20B as shown in FIG. 11 (A). The thermal recording layer 20B contains a leuco dye and a color developer. The ink ribbon 154 as shown in FIG. 11 (B) has a support 154A, and a thermal transfer layer 154B. The thermal transfer layer 154B is the thermal recording layer 20B.
And a desensitizing substance that suppresses the color reaction between the leuco dye and the color developer, and one or both of a colored dye and a colored pigment.

The leuco dye, the color developer, the desensitizing substance, and the colored dye (pigment) used here are described in detail in Japanese Patent Application No. 5-264997 filed by the same applicant. Do not repeat the explanation.

If the heating head 150a is brought into contact with the surface of the paper 20 on the side of the thermosensitive recording layer 20B, the thermosensitive recording layer 20 is formed.
Color is developed by the reaction between the leuco dye of B and the color developer (heat-sensitive color development)
To do. In the case of this embodiment, it develops black. In FIG. 11 (A), reference numeral 156 indicates this colored portion. If the heating head 150a is caused to generate heat at predetermined coordinate positions, only predetermined coordinate positions can be colored black.

When the ink ribbon 154 is placed on the heat-sensitive color developing paper 20 and heated by the heat generating head 150b, coloring by thermal transfer is performed as shown in FIG. 11B. That is, the thermal transfer layer 15 of the ink ribbon 154
The desensitizing substance of 4B suppresses color development of the thermal recording layer 20B, while the colored dye (or pigment) contained in the thermal transfer layer 154B is transferred to the surface of the paper 20.

Since the color development of the thermosensitive recording layer 20B is suppressed by the desensitizing substance, the color development of the colored dye (pigment) is suppressed in the thermosensitive recording layer 2.
It does not mix with the color of 0B, and it becomes vivid and beautiful. Figure 1
156A of 1 (B) is a heat-sensitive recording layer 20 due to a desensitizing substance.
The part in which the color development of B is suppressed is shown. Reference numeral 158 denotes a portion of the transferred ink ribbon 154 which is a colored dye (pigment).

[0042]

[Printer Operation] In the present invention, a plurality of heating heads 15 are provided.
Thermal color development and thermal transfer are performed using 0a and 150b. That is, the three print heads 28 are placed at their home positions HP, and the heat generating heads 150a are brought into contact with the paper 20 as shown in FIG. 11A to perform heat sensitive recording (FIG. 12, step 300).

FIG. 4 shows that the operating range of each print head 28 at this time is D. If the paper 20 has an A1 size width (555 mm), D is 185 mm. By this recording operation of the print head 28 once,
Thermal recording of the width of the print head 28 (width of the paper 20 in the feeding direction, about 22 mm) is performed.

With the movement of the print head 28, the heat generating head 150b also operates to perform thermal transfer recording (step 302). In the case of the serial arrangement of FIG. 9, the heating head 150
After the heat-sensitive recording is performed by a, thermal transfer is performed by the heating head 150b. In the case of the parallel arrangement of FIG. 10,
A print area 36 adjacent to the paper 20 in the feeding direction
After heat-sensitive recording with the heating head 150a, paper 2
0 is sent by an amount corresponding to the width of the print area 36 (referred to as 1 step), and the same area is overlapped and thermal transfer recording is performed by the heating head 150b.

Thus, the heating heads 150a and 150b
The recording is performed by synchronizing the image shifted in the paper feed direction by one step of the paper 20 or the feeding amount of an integral multiple thereof in the moving direction of the print head 28B. Therefore, in this case, a memory (RAM 76) having a capacity that is an integral multiple (same number as the number of print heads 150) of the memory for storing the images in the print area 36 is required.

When each print head 28 finishes printing in a predetermined print area 36, each print head 2
8 returns to each home position HP (step 304), and if printing is not completed (step 3)
06), feed the paper 20 one step (step 30
8) Then, the same operation is repeated.

In FIG. 10 (B), A, C, H, and J represent characters recorded by heat-sensitive recording, and B represents characters formed by thermal transfer recording.
The above operation is repeated for the continuous print area 36 while intermittently feeding the paper 20, and
When the printing is finished, the paper 20 is fed by a predetermined amount and cut by the cutter 40.

When the thermal transfer is performed, the colored dye (pigment) and wax contained in the thermal transfer layer 154B are removed from the paper 2.
Therefore, after the thermal transfer recording, the heating head 150 is moved.
When a is directly brought into contact with the paper 20 for heat-sensitive color development,
Colored dyes (pigments) and waxes on the paper 20 adhere to the heating head 150a. Therefore, beautiful prints cannot be made. Therefore, in the present invention, thermal recording is performed first, and then thermal transfer recording is performed.

In the above embodiment, three independent ink ribbons 154 of three colors are used as the thermal transfer donor sheet, but one ink ribbon has different color portions such as yellow, magenta and black in order. It may be provided with a fixed length (full color system). The number of the ink ribbons 154 used is not limited to three, and three colors or more may be used.
The number of colors may be one or less, for example, one color.

If the support 20A of the paper 20 is colored in advance so that the heat-sensitive color development and the color development by thermal transfer are different, the number of colors usable for printing can be further increased. Further, the ribbon case 152 may be replaced at the home position of the print head (stocker system), instead of a plurality of ribbon cases integrated with the print head.

[0051]

As described above, according to the invention of claim 1, the thermal transfer donor sheet contains the desensitizing substance for suppressing the color development of the thermal recording layer of the thermal recording sheet and the colored dye or the colored pigment. Since the heat transfer recording is performed after the heat sensitive recording, there is no color mixing between the heat sensitive coloring portion and the heat transfer coloring portion, and vivid and beautiful multicolor printing is possible.

Since the heat-sensitive color development is preceded by this, the colored dye (pigment), wax or the like attached to the heat-sensitive recording sheet by thermal transfer recording does not adhere to the heat-generating head for heat-sensitive recording, so that a clean print can always be performed. According to the invention of claim 2,
An apparatus is obtained which is used directly for carrying out this method. In this case, the heat generating heads can be arranged in series in the moving direction of the print head (claim 3 ).

In this case, the print head becomes longer in the moving direction, but the dimension in the paper feeding direction becomes narrower.
The heating heads may be arranged in the paper feeding direction (claim 4 ). In this case, the print head becomes large in the paper feeding direction, but becomes small in the print head moving direction. These arrangements can be appropriately selected according to the accommodation space of the printer. According to the invention of claim 5, the heat used here
A transfer donor sheet is obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an image processing apparatus that is an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing its internal structure.

FIG. 3 is a side perspective view.

[Figure 4] Front perspective view

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a print operation panel provided on an upper surface of a holding cover of the scanner.

FIG. 6 is a view showing a coloring operation panel similarly.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a control system.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a typical coloring process.

FIG. 9 is a layout diagram of a print head

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing the arrangement and operation of the print head.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram of the printing principle.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of printer operation.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 housing 14 printer 18 platen 20 thermal recording sheet (print paper) 28 print head 36 print area 42 scanner 58 digitizer 78 print control means 150a thermal recording heat generating head 150b thermal transfer recording heat generating head 152 ribbon case 154 ink ribbon (thermal transfer donor Sheet) 154A support 154B thermal transfer layer

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Shuzo Hanaoka 1163 Shimoice, Inari Town, Nagano City, Nagano Nagano Japan Radio Co., Ltd. (72) Masaaki Hashizume 1163, Shimoice, Inari Town, Nagano City, Nagano Japan Radio (56) References JP 58-153673 (JP, A) JP 63-193879 (JP, A) JP 62-181186 (JP, A) JP 62-120167 (JP, A) A) JP 51-3647 (JP, A) JP 59-136286 (JP, A) JP 57-18276 (JP, A) JP 60-79971 (JP, A) (58) Survey Areas (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) B41J 2/32-2/325 B41J 31/00 B41M 5/26 B41M 5/34

Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] 1. A thermal recording in which a thermal recording layer is formed on a support.
By combining thermal recording and thermal transfer recording on the sheet,
In a multicolor heat / thermal transfer recording device that enables multicolor recording.
The thermal transfer donor sheet and the thermal recording layer of the thermal recording sheet.
A desensitizing substance that suppresses color and a colored dye or pigment
After thermal recording, the thermal transfer
Sheet, which is used for thermal transfer recording.
Color thermal / thermal transfer recording method. 2. A thermosensitive recording sheet having a thermosensitive recording layer formed on a support, wherein the thermosensitive recording sheet is a multicolor thermosensitive / thermal transfer recording apparatus capable of multicolor recording by using thermosensitive recording and thermal transfer recording together. A print head which faces the heat-sensitive recording layer and reciprocates within a fixed distance in a direction orthogonal to the feeding direction of the heat-sensitive recording sheet, and heat-generating heads for heat-sensitive recording and thermal transfer recording provided on the print head. And a desensitizing substance, which is provided between the heat-sensitive recording sheet and the heat-generating head for thermal transfer recording and is thermally transferred by the heat-generating head for heat-transfer recording, for suppressing color development of the heat-sensitive recording layer. A thermal transfer donor sheet containing the same, a thermal transfer recording heating head of the same print head in a recording area previously subjected to thermal recording using the thermal recording heating head, and
A multi-color heat-sensitive device, comprising: a print control unit that performs heat transfer recording by superposing using a heat transfer donor sheet.
Thermal transfer recording device. 3. A multicolor thermal / thermal transfer recording apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the heat-sensitive recording heat-generating heads are mounted side by side in the moving direction of the print head so as to record before the heat-transfer recording heat-generating heads. 4. The heat-sensitive recording heating head is attached to the print head so as to precede the heat-transfer recording heat-generating head in the feed direction of the heat-sensitive recording sheet, and the heat-recorded recording area is fed in the feed direction of the heat-sensitive recording sheet. The multicolor thermosensitive / thermal transfer recording apparatus according to claim 2 , which performs thermal transfer recording. 5. The multicolor heat-sensitive / thermal transfer method according to claim 1.
A thermal transfer donor sheet, It has a support and a thermal transfer layer, and the thermal transfer layer is a thermal recording.
Desensitizing substance that suppresses color development of the thermosensitive recording layer of the sheet
And at least one of a colored dye and a colored pigment
A thermal transfer donor sheet characterized by the above.