In general, the photo printer includes a print processing section for performing the same operations as conventional printers, and a photo image processing section for processing image data read from the memory card. A photo printer employing roll paper includes a roll paper feeding device holding and feeding the roll paper, an image forming device forming an image by heating a sheet of roll paper fed from the roll paper feeding device at a prescribed temperature, an image fixing device irradiating the sheet of roll paper on which the image has been formed with ultraviolet ray to fix the image, and a cutting device cutting the sheet of roll paper on which the image has been fixed to a prescribes size to finish a photograph. Thermal and inkjet printing systems are commonly used for the production of text and graphic images for home, office and commercial applications. Such printing systems include receiver media for printing, such as paper, which can be supplied either from a stack or several stacks of pre-cut receiver media, or can be cut from a receiver media supply roll. After the printing cycle, an internal cutter assembly is utilized to trim printed receiver media to size and/or to cut non-printed areas from the printed receiver media. The paper feeding module must securely clamp the paper along a front-and-rear direction for precise printing of a color picture. When driving the paper, there must be no unwanted displacement of the paper within the paper feeding module. This helps to prevent degradation of printing quality. The color printing process or photo printers commonly employ ink ribbons having multiple ink tracks each with a different color. A photo printer is capable of printing in color using an ink ribbon which has three widthwise color tracks, and which are black, red, and blue, respectively. Switching between the three tracks is typically performed using driver such as a motor.

Thermal printers are used in computer systems to print digital images. A thermal printer is used with sheets of thermosensitive recording material, which includes a support and at least one recording layer formed on the support. The thermal printer has a thermal head, with which an image is thermally recorded on the recording sheet. A color thermal printer is used with color thermosensitive recording paper, and produces full-color prints. The recording paper includes a support and at least three thermosensitive coloring layers overlaid thereon. A thermal inkjet printhead includes access to a local or remote supply of color or mono ink, a heater chip, a nozzle or orifice plate attached to the heater chip, and an input/output connector, such as a tape automated bond circuit, for electrically connecting the heater chip to the printer during use. The heater chip ypically includes a plurality of thin film resistors or heaters fabricated by deposition, masking and etching techniques on a substrate such as silicon. One or more ink vias cut or etched through a thickness of the silicon serve to fluidly connect the supply of ink to the individual heaters. The color thermal recording paper includes yellow, magenta, and cyan thermosensitive coloring layers overlaid on a support in sequence. The color thermal recording paper is fed by feeder roller pairs constituted of a capstan roller and a pinch roller. While feeding the recording paper, each heating element of a thermal head is caused to generate heat based on image data, and thereafter one of three primary color images is printed line by line. One type of printer uses a printhead to heat a dye ribbon to transfer dye of different colors to a print medium. A typical dye ribbon comprises dye regions or frames of colors that can be printed in proportions to approximate true color, and a transparent overcoating region that can be disposed over printed dye to protect the printed dye from moisture degradation. This type of thermal printer is commonly used to print digital photographs via direct connection to a personal computer or digital camera.

Ink-jet printers are popular and cost-effective devices for producing color images. The quality of color prints made by inkjet type printers has advanced to a level such that photo-quality images can be produced. Ink jet printer using an ink cartridge rapidly comes into wide use in view of the fact that coloring technology advances and the use of the ink jet type of printer makes it possible to obtain a relatively clear color image with compactness and at low price. An image is produced by emitting ink drops from an inkjet printhead at precise moments such that they impact a print medium, such as a sheet of paper, at a desired location. Photo media have been developed for this type of printing. The photo medium usually comprises a base of white, plastic film, or bonded layers of plastic and paper. One side of the base is coated with a thin, ink-receiving coating. This ink-receiving coating provides substantially all of the photographic attributes of the medium. Generally, an ink jet photo printer has a carriage supported by a guide bar on a slidable basis. A plurality of ink cartridges storing a plurality of colors of ink is detachably mounted on the carriage, and ink stored in the ink cartridge is ejected from a recording head provided on the carriage by a film boiling force based on a driving signal, so that a color image is formed on a blank form. The timing of the ink drop emissions corresponds to a pattern of pixels of the image being printed. Because of ease of control operation, a print head drive system for ejecting ink droplets by utilization of flexural vibration of a piezoelectric element has become pervasive as a print head drive system of such an ink jet printer.

Photo printers represented by laser beam printers feature low-noise, high-quality and high-speed. A laser printer forms a color picture by transferring and superposing a plurality of toner images having different colors, which have been formed on a photosensitive member utilizing electro-photographic technology, onto an intermediate transcription member, thus to carry out color picture printing. The laser color printer may be such that four color developing units are switched from one to another by a mechanical drive unit, so as to be brought into contact with a photosensitive drum. More specifically, the four color toner images are formed while the photosensitive drum makes four turns. A laser printer is provided with a light scanning device for converging a light beam emitted from a light source on a scanned surface as a light spot and scanning the light spot on the scanned surface. The laser beam scanning in a direction perpendicular to the rotating direction of the photosensitive member is intermittently controlled according to video data corresponding to a picture to be printed in order to form an electrostatic latent image on the outer surface of the photosensitive member with exposure control; and a toner image is formed by developing the electrostatic latent image formed on the outer surface of the photosensitive member by said exposure. The light scanning device is provided with a polygon mirror for scanning the light beam, and scanning lenses for focusing the light beam.

Although ink jet printers, laser printers and thermal printers are common, commercially available printer devices that are typically used in conjunction with a desktop or laptop computer, which is sometimes a bit inconvenient. Printed images from such cameras must be obtained by connecting the camera or its removable memory to a computer with an attached printer or to a printer capable of interfacing directly with digital cameras. In this case, the time taken to print out all the photographs is still considerable. Recently, a photo printer has been developed which is provided with an image data processing function substantially the same as that of a personal computer. Such photo printers are very useful because it is possible to print image data taken by the digital camera without using the personal computer. These new photo printers have expanded the options for printing color photographs, especially those captured with digital cameras. These photo printers typically have an integrated photo controller that functions as a special purpose computer capable of processing the digital image and feeding appropriate data to the print mechanism. These printers typically utilize ink jet or a dye diffusion print technology. It is, therefore, quite advantageous to use a photo printer which is integrally formed with the camera so that a printed image can be made without having to connect the camera or its removable memory to a computer with an attached printer or directly to a printer.