This invention is in the field of apparatus and methods of manufacture of image products and, more particularly, in the field of two-sided image products.
Until recently the majority of photographic images were supplied to consumers in the form of the familiar silver halide-based photographic print consisting almost always of just one image printed on one side of a paper or paper-like medium. While the venerable photographic print has served the marketplace well for over a hundred years, the advent of new digital printing technologies utilizing silver halide media and other newer print media has enabled the printing of a much greater variety of photographic image bearing products. For example, the capability now exists to easily compose and print multiple images on a single sheet. One recent example which capitalizes upon these capabilities to generate novel image products is disclosed in the series of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,791,692; 5,957,502, and 6,004,061 along with commonly assigned co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 09/452,336 and 09/450,608 to Manico. This series of patents discloses various aspects of dual sided photoalbum sheets and methods of making them by folding image bearing print media over on itself and adhering the folded sheet together to create an attractive two-sided page with desirable properties. The methods disclosed by Manico, while very useful, do not lend themselves to the manufacture of two-sided image bearing sheets in a continuous manner. Such a continuous method would lend itself much better to high volume, low-cost manufacturing of not only two-sided album pages, but also a variety of other two-sided image-bearing products.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention there is provided a two-sided photoalbum page having first and second sides, the page being made of a single piece of an image bearing media folded such that the first and second sides are adhered together in a substantially co-extensive manner, the first and second sides having a plurality of slits cut therein prior to folding of the page, the slits sized and positioned to receive at least one corner of a document thereby securing the document to the page.
In yet another aspect of the present invention there is provided a custom two-sided image product having first and second sides, the custom image product being made a continuous web of an image bearing medium folded such that the first and second sides are adhered together in a substantially co-extensive manner in a continuous process, the web having a plurality of different custom image products.
These and other aspects, objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood and appreciated from a review of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and appended claims, and by reference to the accompanying drawings.