Patent ID: 6323912
Filing Date: 2001-11-27
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
In an electronic camera responsive to a digital image stored in such camera and having a microfluidic printer for printing images onto a receiver to form continuous tone color pixels corresponding to the stored digital image, the improvement comprising:a) means for focusing an image of a subject at an image plane,b) area image sensor means disposed at the image plane for receiving the image subject and producing a digital image representing the subject,c) storage means coupled to the area image sensor for storing the digitized image of the subject;d) the microfluidic printer including a plurality of colorant reservoirs including reservoirs for containing cyan, magenta, and yellow colorants, respectively, and a plurality of colorant delivery chambers the microfluidic printer further, including,i) a plurality of colorant modifying fluid reservoirs containing colorant modifying fluids having different scents;e) selectable mode control means responsive to the digital image for causing colorants to be delivered from colorant reservoirs to selected colorant delivery chambers in the correct amount and for delivering particular ones of colorant modifying fluids from the plurality of colorant modifying fluid reservoirs to selected delivery chambers to provide a desired scent on a formed image, wherein the selectable mode control means automatically selects the colorant modifying fluid with the appropriate scent as a function of a predetermined condition, wherein the predetermined condition is a date or season of the year; andf) means for causing the transfer of the colorants with the selected colorant modifying fluid in the delivery chamber to the receiver to form a continuous tone color image having the desired scent.