SUBLIMATION TYPE THERMAL TRANSFER IMAGE RECORDING METHOD AND INK RIBBON

PURPOSE:To record an image on plain paper by a method wherein an image receiving layer is provided to a part of an ink ribbon to be preliminarily transferred to recording paper and the sublimable ink of the ink ribbon is subsequently sublimed to be transferred to the transferred image receiving layer to form an image. CONSTITUTION:When printing is performed using an ink ribbon 10, the ink ribbon 10 is successively sent and subjected to the lap-coating of respective colors to perform color printing. Prior to transferring the inks, the whole of the regions 11 of the receiving layers having the same areas as the parts of the respective colors is transferred to recording paper at first. Subsequently, the sublimable ink layers 15 provided to the ink regions 12 continuing to the regions 11 of the image receiving layer of the ink ribbon 10 are sublimed by the heat of a thermal head corresponding to image data and penetrate into the image receiving layers 17 transferred to the recording paper previously and an image is formed to the image receiving layers 17 and recorded on the recording paper.