Thermal processing method of silver salt photothermographic dry imaging material

Abstract

A thermal processing method of a photothermographic material comprising light-insensitive aliphatic carboxylic acid silver salt particles, light-sensitive silver halide grains, a reducing agent for silver ions and a binder is disclosed, comprising (a) exposing the photothermographic material, and (b) developing the exposed photothermographic material at a development temperature of at 110 to 150° C. to form an image, wherein the aliphatic carboxylic acid silver salt particles are comprised of 70 to 99 mol % of silver behenate and exhibit an average sphere equivalent diameter of 0.05 to 0.5 μm and a standard deviation of particle size of 0.3 μm or less, and the method further comprising (c) heating the photothermographic material at a temperature lower than the development temperature.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.