JPH0621941B2 - Processing method of silver halide light-sensitive material - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (A) Field of Industrial Use The present invention relates to a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material, in particular, a method for developing a silver image using a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material for plate making.

(B) Prior Art and Problems Thereof The reduction treatment is a method of exposing a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material and developing it, and then dissolving the image silver with a silver oxidizing agent to reduce the halftone dot area ratio.

In particular, in order to obtain a halftone dot gradation suitable for printing characteristics and to obtain good good color reproduction when obtaining an original plate for printing using a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material for platemaking, the above platemaking photograph is used. It is often practiced to partially or wholly correct an image by subjecting the light-sensitive material to a reduction process to reduce the halftone dot area. Therefore, the reducing property of the photosensitive material for plate-making is a process of oxidizing and dissolving the silver image, and the reducing area of the halftone image reduces the halftone dot area.

Therefore, the range in which the halftone image can be corrected by the reduction processing is limited by the degree of decrease in the blackening density per halftone due to the decrease in the halftone dot area. That is, how much the halftone dot area can be reduced while maintaining an appropriate density as a printing original plate is a measure of the reduction processing capacity.

On the other hand, a sulfite is often used in a developing solution used for developing a silver halide light-sensitive material for the purpose of enhancing the storage stability of the developing solution. Particularly in the rapid access process which has been widely used in recent years, a high concentration of sulfite of 0.1 mol / mol or more is contained in the developing solution in order to enhance the storability of the developing solution. When a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material is treated with such a developing solution, a large amount of silver complex is eluted into the developing solution, and the eluted silver complex is reduced to silver sludge.

In particular, when a large amount of silver halide photographic light-sensitive material is continuously processed using an automatic processor, silver sludge adheres to the developing roller or tank wall and contaminates the surface of the silver halide photographic light-sensitive material. However, the quality deteriorates as a result.

In order to prevent such silver sludge, a method of adding a mercapto compound to the developer is known. (British Patent Nos. 940,169, 1,144,481, U.S. Pat.
No. 4-13331) (C) Object of the Invention By the way, in normal depressurizing work, it is desirable that the permeation density of the portion etched by the depressurizing solution becomes 0. However, the PS plate after the depressurizing work is desired. If the density is such that it does not affect the baking on the surface, the transmission density of the etched part remains, and it is possible to visually judge the proportion of the reduced halftone dots using an instrument such as a loupe. Become.

As a result of detailed experiments, the inventors of the present invention have found that when a certain mercapto compound is used as an anti-sludge agent, the portion etched by the reduction work has a ring-like concentration that does not affect the baking of the PS plate. I found out what remains. With this effect, the reduction rate of the halftone dot area after the reduction can be visually judged, and the working efficiency can be improved.

(D) Structure of the invention The inventors of the present invention have conducted extensive studies, and as a result, a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material was imagewise exposed, developed with an alkaline processing solution, and then subjected to a depressurizing treatment with a silver oxidizing agent. In the above, it was found that the above object can be achieved with respect to the reduction treatment of a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material by containing a compound represented by the general formula [I] in the developer.

[I]

Specific examples of these compounds will be shown below, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

1. 2. 3. Four. Five. 6. 7. 8. 9. The addition amount of these compounds can be arbitrarily selected within a range not exceeding 2 g /.

The silver halide emulsion used in the present invention may be produced by any of an acidic method, a neutral method and an ammonia method.
It can also contain polyvalent metals. The present invention also relates to the properties of silver halide photographic emulsions such as the composition of silver halide (eg, silver bromide, silver chloride, silver chlorobromide, silver iodobromide, silver chloroiodobromide), and silver halide. It can be carried out regardless of the crystal form, crystal habit, and size.

The emulsion used in the present invention may contain various additives. For example, chemical sensitizers (eg sulfur sensitizers such as thiourea and hypo, precious metal sensitizers such as gold, platinum and iridium compounds, reduction sensitizers) and organic desensitizers should also be used in combination. You can Further, a spectral sensitizer, a supersensitizer, a stabilizer, an antifoggant, a surfactant, a developer, a development accelerator, a film hardening agent, a film hardening accelerator, a dye removal improver,
It may contain a whitening agent, a thickening agent, precursors thereof, and the like.

Examples of the protective colloid of the silver halide emulsion used in the present invention include gelatin, modified gelatin, albumin, agar, gum arabic, natural products such as alginic acid, polyvinyl alcohol, polyvinylpyrrolidone, copolymers of acrylic amide, acrylic acid and vinyl imidazole. Water-soluble synthetic resins such as

The silver halide photographic emulsion used in the present invention is a suitable support such as glass, cellulose acetate film, polyethylene terephthalate film, paper, baryta-coated paper,
It is coated on something such as a polyolefin (eg polyethylene, polypropylene, etc.) coated paper. These supports may be subjected to corona treatment by a known method, or may be subjected to subbing processing by a known method, if necessary.

The silver halide photographic emulsion used in the present invention is coated with a protective layer, an intermediate layer, an ultraviolet absorbing layer, an undercoat layer or other silver halide emulsions, if necessary.

The aqueous alkaline developer used in the present invention may have a generally known composition. Examples of developing agents include dihydroxybenzenes (for example, hydroquinone) and 3-pyrazolidones (for example, 1-phenyl-).
3-pyrazolidone), aminophenols, ascorbic acid and the like are used alone or in combination.

The amount added is 0.05 to 0.5 mol /.

The aqueous alkaline developer used in the present invention contains a sulfite preservative for the purpose of protecting the developer from air oxidation. For example, sodium sulfite, potassium sulfite, potassium metabisulfite, sodium bisulfite and the like are added.
The preferred addition amount is 0.25 to 1.00 mol /.

The aqueous alkaline developer used in the present invention can contain potassium hydroxide, sodium hydroxide, potassium carbonate, sodium carbonate, sodium acetate, potassium triphosphate, etc. for adjusting the pH.

The aqueous alkaline developer used in the present invention may contain a necessary organic antifoggant in order to minimize the formation of fog and to obtain preferable photographic characteristics.

Benzotriazole, 6-nitrobenzimidazole nitrate, 5-methylbenzotriazole, 1-phenyl-
2-tetrazoline-5-thione, 5-phenyltetrazole, 1-phenyl-5-mercaptotetrazole, 5
-Nitroindazole, 6-nitroindazole and the like are common.

The aqueous alkaline developer in the present invention is ascorbic acid,
An antioxidant such as diethanolamine or kojic acid, a water softener such as nitrilotriacetic acid or ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, a polyalkylene oxide, an amino compound, an organic solvent such as triethylene glycol or methanol can be contained.

Many reducing fluids are known for use in the present invention. For example, a reducing solution using a reducing agent such as permanganate, ferric salt, second cerium salt, red blood salt, persulfate, and dichromate is known.

As the fixer, those having a generally well-known composition can be used. As the fixing agent, in addition to thiosulfates and thiocyanates, organic sulfur compounds known as fixing agents can be used.

(E) Examples Examples Examples Silver chlorobromide containing 95 mol% of silver chloride was mixed by a usual method and subjected to physical ripening to obtain an emulsion having an average grain size of 0.1 μm and a narrow grain size distribution. After desalting and re-dissolving this emulsion, 500 mg of pinacryptol yellow as an organic desensitizer was added per mol of silver halide, and a hardening agent and a surfactant were further added to the polyester film to obtain 3.5 g of silver as silver. It was applied together with the gelatin solution for the protective layer so as to be m ² , and dried.

The sample was subjected to close contact exposure of halftone dots of 150 lines and 50% using a printer using a high pressure mercury lamp as a light source. Further, five kinds of developing solutions shown in Table 1 were prepared, and development processing was performed under the condition of 38 degrees and 20 seconds, fixing and drying.

Next, each sample was subjected to a reduction treatment using a commercially available reduction liquid.
The treatment conditions were 20 ° C. and the reduction time was 100 seconds. Observing the halftone dots after reduction with a magnifying glass, the samples treated with the developers (1) to (4) to which the compound according to the present invention was added were equal,
A ring-shaped low residual concentration was observed.

Therefore, the degree of reduction of halftone dots can be easily determined. In the comparative developer (5) and the sample treated with the developer containing no mercapto compound, the ring-shaped residual concentration was not observed.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A processing method in which a silver halide light-sensitive material is imagewise exposed, developed with an alkaline processing solution, and then subjected to a reduction treatment with a silver oxidizing agent.
A method of processing a silver halide light-sensitive material, which comprises a compound represented by: [I]