High speed package printer

US6252652A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Lifetouch Portrait Studios, Inc. · US

Inventors

• E. John Adolphi · Eden Prairie, US
• Gerald A. Jensen · Plymouth, US
• Michael T. Breckenridge · Minneapolis, US
• Todd Kuester · Prior Lake, US
• Patrick J. Galloway · Milford, US
• John Lawson · La Selva Beach, US

Key dates

• Filing date: May 6, 1999
• Grant date: Jun 26, 2001
• Expiry date: May 6, 2019

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G03B2227/005
• WIPO field: Optics
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

In a high speed package printer that produces photographs of varying size from film negatives, different cropping apertures are used with different lenses for different prints. In order to provide a large combination of different cropping apertures with different lenses the lenses and cropping apertures are separately selected for each print. The high speed package printer includes a light source, a diffusion plate, a plurality of cropping apertures on an aperture member which can be moved to select which aperture will block light from the diffusion plate. The light from the cropping aperture then passes through a negative for projection by a lens onto photographic paper for printing pictures. Separate means for moving the aperture member and for selecting which lens will receive light from a negative after it is provide a selection of all combinations of lenses and cropping apertures such that the photographs produced can have different sizes and shapes.