Patent ID: 7876344

Claim:
A photographic printing method, comprising the steps of: thermally transferring a color material of a thermal transfer sheet onto a recording medium; further transferring an image protection layer thermally onto the recording medium having the color material thermally transferred thereon; and processing the surface of the image protection layer thermally transferred on the recording medium so as to satisfy all of the following conditions (1) to (6): (1) the 20° relative-specular glossiness (JIS P 8142) of the surface of the image protection layer thermally transferred on the recording medium is 30% or less, (2) the image clarity value (JIS H 8686) as measured using an optical comb with a width of 2.0 mm is 30% or less, (3) the image clarity value (JIS H 8686) as measured using an optical comb with a width of 1.0 mm is 5.0% or more, (4) the image clarity value (JIS H 8686) as measured using an optical comb with a width of 0.5 mm is 4.0% or more, (5) the image clarity value (JIS H 8686) as measured using an optical comb with a width of 0.25 mm is 3.0% or more, and (6) the image clarity value (JIS H 8686) as measured using an optical comb with a width of 0.125 mm is 3.0% or more.