Method of forming a silver haloiodide photographic element

Abstract

A method for forming a photographic element includes steps of heating an emulsion containing grains of a radiation sensitive silver haloiodide to form a first melt, heating an emulsion containing grains of a silver salt effective to enhance the photographic properties of the silver haloiodide emulsion to form a second melt, and coating the first and second melts onto a photographic support to form an image recording layer. The silver salt grains are substantially insensitive to radiation at wavelengths at which said silver haloiodide grains are sensitive. The coating step is preferably carried out by blending the first and second melts together, then immediately coating the silver haloiodide emulsion onto the support. In a preferred embodiment, the silver salt is essentially silver chloride in the form of relatively fine cubic grains, and the silver haloiodide is in the form of tabular grains larger than the cubic grains. The foregoing procedure unexpectedly improves the speed of the resulting photographic element. For color reversal photographic elements, the melt containing the fine silver salt grains is conveniently the coupler melt.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.