JPS6267545A - Photosensitive material treatment device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To simplify and scale down constitution and to facilitate maintenance and checking work by executing fogging exposure in air and development processing after applying a treatment solution uniformly to the surface of a photosensitive material by a coating device. CONSTITUTION:The photosensitive material (a) supplied to the coating device A is downwardly conveyed due to rotational movement in a state where said material (a) is held by a coating roller 5. A dampening roller 3 dipped in a subtreatment solution tank 4 uniformly sticks a specified amount of treatment solution 1 in the vicinity of the coating roller 5, and the roller 5 applies uniformly and forcibly the solution to the surface of the photosensitive material (a). Then fogging exposure is applied to the photographic emulsion layer of the photosensitive material (a) in air. After the fogging exposure, the photosensitive material (a) is conveyed to a development treatment tank 2 comprising a photographic treatment device C.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a developing processing apparatus for photographic light-sensitive materials, and more particularly to a light-sensitive material processing apparatus that performs photographic processing by applying fog exposure during the processing process.

1. Prior Art 1. As is well known, in a silver halide photosensitive paper development method such as direct positive color development to obtain a positive color print from a positive color image, after an exposed photosensitive material is immersed in a processing solution (developer), It is necessary to perform photographic processing by irradiating the surface of the photosensitive material with light such as white light to eliminate so-called "fogging exposure." For this reason, in conventional photosensitive material processing equipment that uses a silver halide photosensitive paper development method, an exposure device that irradiates white light or the like onto the photosensitive material being processed is installed inside the development tank in which the exposed photosensitive material is immersed. Either the processing tank is divided into a preprocessing tank and a subsequent processing tank, and the surface of the photosensitive material pulled out from the preprocessing tank is exposed to light such as white light from an exposure device outside the tank. is used to perform fog exposure.

However, in TJ's photosensitive material processing equipment, since the exposure device is placed in the processing solution, it is difficult to incorporate the exposure device inside the developing processing tank, which requires internal cleaning quite frequently, and the processing solution It is troublesome to control the exposure amount of the exposure device depending on the dirt on the exposure device, and to maintain and manage the cleaning of the irradiation surface of the exposure device. Furthermore, in the latter type of photosensitive material processing apparatus, the developing tank is divided into two parts, which makes the apparatus configuration complicated and the entire apparatus large. Furthermore, in the photosensitive material processing equipment, it is necessary to allow a sufficiently long development processing time after fogging exposure compared to the processing solution immersion time and fogging exposure time before fogging exposure. Not only does the developing tank become long, there is a lot of waste, and the equipment becomes large, but the exposed photosensitive material is suddenly immersed in the processing solution before fogging exposure, so the photosensitive material is Air bubbles adhering to the surface may cause local differences in the drying start time of the photographic emulsion layer, resulting in uneven development.

By the way, according to the experiments and research results of the non-inventor, the processing liquid immersion step before fogging exposure takes the time required to wet and swell the photosensitive material up to the lowest emulsion layer, that is, the time required for ordinary photographic paper to swell. In this case, it has been found that it is sufficient to secure a time of around 10 seconds at most.

-Object of the Invention 1 In view of the current state of conventional photosensitive material processing equipment as described above, an object of the present invention is to provide a photosensitive material that has a simple and reasonable equipment configuration, allows the entire equipment to be downsized, and does not cause uneven development. A processing device is obtained.

Structure of the Invention - To achieve this object, the present invention provides a coating device for uniformly applying a processing liquid to the photosensitive material in a photosensitive material processing apparatus that performs photographic processing by applying fog exposure to an imagewise exposed photosensitive material. an exposure device that applies fog exposure in the atmosphere to the photosensitive material that has passed through the coating device; and a photoprocessing device that is disposed behind the exposure device in the direction in which the photosensitive material is fed and performs photographic processing to obtain a color image of the photosensitive material. It is proposed that the government should be equipped with the following.

One Embodiment - Hereinafter, details of an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 1 is an overall cross-sectional view of a photosensitive material processing apparatus according to the present invention. In the case of this photosensitive material processing, a sheet-like exposed photosensitive material a on which a color image has been formed into a latent image is coated with a processing liquid on its surface. After passing through the m1r3 device A that uniformly coats the surface and the exposure device B that irradiates the surface with white light, the photographic processing device C
The developing tank 2 is immersed in the developing tank 2 that constitutes the
It is developed with That is, the coating device A in the illustrated example is a coating roller-type coating device that can form a processing liquid tank with a uniform thickness on the surface of the photosensitive material a, and has a pair of auxiliary rollers that accommodate the processing liquid 1 and the wetting roller 3, respectively. It has a processing liquid tank 4.

A pair of application rollers 5, which are rotated in the direction of the arrow, are in rolling contact with the wetting roller 3 whose lower half is immersed in the treatment liquid 1.
The photosensitive material a is conveyed downward by application rollers 5 that roll into contact with each other. Although not shown, the coating roller 5 for uniformly applying a processing solution to swell the photographic emulsion layer on the surface of the photosensitive material a protects the photographic emulsion layer on the surface of the photosensitive material a during transportation of the photosensitive material a. Therefore, the peripheral surface can be made of porous rubber that can be impregnated with the processing liquid 1, a material that has an affinity for the processing liquid 1, or a similar elastic material. Therefore, the photosensitive material a supplied to the illustrated coating device A is conveyed downward by the rotational movement while being pinched by the coating rollers 5, but when these coating rollers 5 rotate in the direction of the arrow, the auxiliary processing is performed. The wetting roller 3 immersed in the liquid tank 4 applies a certain amount of the processing liquid l uniformly to the circumferential surface of the coating roller 5, and the processing liquid on the circumferential surface is forcibly uniformly applied to the surface of the photosensitive material a through which it passes. It will be applied to Therefore, according to the application roller 5, the processing liquid 1 can be applied to the entire surface of the photosensitive material a forcibly and without generating bubbles, so that uneven development can be prevented in the subsequent development process. In the case of the design example, if the transport speed of photosensitive material a is planned to be constant from coating device A to the final process, processing liquid 1
Since complete swelling of the photographic emulsion can be obtained in about 10 seconds from the start of coating, the conveyance speed and relative position of coating device A and exposure device B should be adjusted so that photosensitive material a reaches exposure device B after this time has elapsed. Just set it.

Further, the exposure device B disposed directly below the coating device A is
A light source 6 and a condenser lens 7 are built inside, and white light of uniform illuminance is irradiated onto the surface of the photosensitive material a through which it passes through to give fog exposure to the photographic emulsion layer of the photosensitive material a in the atmosphere. The configuration is not limited to this, and any known exposure means, such as an electroluminescence element or other slit exposure means, may be used instead, as long as it can achieve the same exposure purpose. This exposure process is
In the case of the above-mentioned design example, the necessary exposure amount can be provided by exposure for about 5 seconds.

In the photosensitive material processing apparatus according to the present invention, after the fog exposure, the photosensitive material a is transported to a developing tank 2 constituting a photographic processing apparatus C. In the illustrated embodiment, exposure device B
A developing processing tank 2 disposed directly under the processing tank 2 contains therein processing Ml for developing processing, and a plurality of pairs of conveying rollers 8 having the same circumferential speed as the above-mentioned application roller 5 are installed in the tank.
is placed.

Therefore, the photosensitive material a supplied to the development processing tank 2 is sent in a meandering state inside the tank at a constant speed by the rotational movement of the conveyance roller 8, and the photographic latent image is developed while passing through the tank. .

In the case of the above-mentioned design example, the processing time in the developing tank 2 was about 60 seconds, and the developing process could be completely completed within this processing time. In addition, no development unevenness was observed in the color positive image obtained with this design example, but the reason for this is
Prior to the development process in the development process tank 2, the processing liquid 1 was forcibly and uniformly applied to the surface of the photosensitive material a by the application roller 5, so the photographic emulsion layer of the photosensitive material a was already in a swollen state, and the development process It is considered that this is because the treatment liquid 1 in the tank 2 had a high affinity for being easily wetted.

The photosensitive material a that has undergone the development process is taken out from the development process tank 2 by a discharge roller 9 disposed at the upper side of the development process tank 2, and transferred to the bleaching/stabilization process tank 1 by a relay roller 10.
1, and the formed image is subjected to bleaching and stabilization processing inside a bleaching/stabilizing processing tank 11 which has a built-in transport roller 12 similar to the developing processing tank 2. The photographic process in the bleaching/stabilizing tank 11 can be completed in the same or shorter time than the developing process in the developing tank 2, but the stabilizer used in the bleaching/stabilizing tank 11 etc. are already well known, so detailed explanation will be omitted.

- Effects of the Invention - As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, after uniformly applying a processing solution to the surface of a photosensitive material using a coating device, fog exposure is performed in the atmosphere, and then development processing is performed. This makes the equipment configuration simpler and more compact than conventional photosensitive material processing equipment, and the development tank and exposure equipment, which require frequent maintenance such as cleaning, can be separated, reducing maintenance work. It also becomes easier. In addition, in the present invention, if a treatment liquid type coating device is used as in the above-mentioned embodiment,
Since bubbles can be prevented from forming on the surface of the photosensitive material being processed, it is possible to form images without uneven development.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a photosensitive material processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. a... Photosensitive material, A... Coating device, B... Exposure device, C... Photographic processing device, 1... Processing liquid. Patent applicant: Roku Konishi Photo Industry Co., Ltd.
i''', no amendment to S) Figure 1 procedural amendment (J phantom September 19, 1986)

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) In a photosensitive material processing apparatus that performs photographic processing by applying fog exposure to an imagewise exposed photosensitive material, there is provided a coating device that uniformly applies a processing liquid to the photosensitive material, and a photosensitive material that passes through the coating device. A photosensitive material processing apparatus comprising an exposure device that applies fog exposure to a material in the atmosphere, and a photographic processing device that is disposed behind the exposure device in the direction in which the photosensitive material is fed and performs photographic processing to obtain color development of the photosensitive material. 2) The processing device according to claim 1, wherein the coating device is a roller coating device.