Stabilization of Highlight Density for a Dye Sublimation Printer

Abstract

A dye sublimation thermal transfer printing provides quality of image comparable to silver halide photograph. The feature of the printing is continuous density gradation, however, characteristic of the gradation in highlight area deteriorates by deviation of characteristics of the sublimation process. As a result, degradation of image quality such as tone jump and color saturation occurs in highlight area.
This paper describes highlight error diffusion technique improving the tonal rendition in the highlight area and also micro density stabilization algorithm realizing it in the sublimation process. The micro stabilization algorithm controls injection of thermal quantity to a pixel under consideration of average density in surrounding pixels.
The proposed techniques improve continuous tone characteristics in highlight area without visually recognizable granularity.