SELECTIVE HEAT-TRANSFER IMAGING SYSTEM AND METHOD OF USING THE SAME.

摘要

A heat-transfer imaging system (10) and a method of using the same. The heat-transfer imaging system (10) includes a heat-transfer sheet (11) and an activating ink (12). The heat-transfer sheet (11) and the activating ink (12) are specially formulated so that only the areas of the heat- transfer sheet onto which the ink has been printed become adhesive under heat-transfer conditions. This effect may be achieved by designing the sheet to include an ink-receptive coating (25) whose melting temperature is higher than that typically encountered during normal heat-transfer conditions and by formulating the activating ink (12) to include a plasticizer that, when printed onto the ink-receptive coating (25), lowers the melting temperature of the ink-receptive coating sufficiently so that the modified melting temperature falls within the temperature range encountered during heat-transfer.