Method of preparing hard copies

摘要

The invention provides a method of preparing a hard copy by forming a transparent coating layer on a recording medium in areas where image has been recorded. The invention has the first step of causing clear droplets to fly from a recording head toward the areas where image has been recorded and the second step of curing the droplets while they are in flight and the third step of depositing the cured droplets in the image-recorded areas of the recording medium so as to form the coating layer. According to the invention, a clear coating layer over color layer can reproduce an even more accurate gloss than in the prior art and presents the desired surface properties in the absence of steps even if there is unevenness in image recording density, whereby the image has a sufficiently improved texture to look more real.