Improvement of color-to-color registration in thermal printers by adjusting image resolution based on image content

摘要

A color thermal dye transfer printer (10) that produces superposed color plane images of varying image densities on a receiver medium includes a printhead (12) movable in a print direction relative to the receiver medium to produce images on the receiver medium at a printing rate, the images being of selectable resolution along the print direction. The image density of each color plane image is determined, and the image resolution for each color plane is set according to the image densities of the color plane images. The image resolution may be set by adjusting the angular velocity (ω) of the media drive motor, by adjusting the velocity of relative movement of the printhead (12) relative to the receiver medium, or by adjusting the printing rate. Each color plane image may be divided into a plurality of sectors of varying image densities. The image density of each color plane image in respective sectors is determined; and the image resolution is set for each color plane image in respective sectors according to the image densities of the color plane sector images.