Method of and apparatus for positioning image areas of film

DETAILED DESCRIPTION What is claimed is: 1.
A method of positioning image areas of an exposed and developed strip of photosensitive material, comprising the steps of conveying said photosensitive material along a predetermined path; scanning said photosensitive material at a first location of said path to detect characteristic regions associated with said image areas; generating a signal in response to detection of each of said regions; establishing a first position coordinate for each of said regions upon passage of the respective region by said first location; calculating a second position coordinate for each of said image areas using said signals and said first position coordinates; storing each of said signals in correlation to the respective first position coordinate; measuring the distance of travel of said photosensitive material; and positioning each of said image areas at a second location of said path using said second position coordinates and the measured distance of travel of said photosensitive material, the positioning step including checking the measurements obtained during the measuring step using said signals and said first position coordinates.
2.
The method of claim l, wherein each of said image areas has an edge and at least some of said regions include respective edges of said image areas.
3.
The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of said regions include an abrupt change in density within an image area.
4.
The method of claim 1, wherein the scanning step is performed photoelectrically.
5.
The method of claim 1, wherein said photosensitive material is conveyed lengthwise and the scanning step comprises successively scanning strip-like segments extending widthwise of said photosensitive material, each of said segments having a width, as considered lengthwise of said photosensitive material, which is small in relation to the length of said photosensitive material.
6.
The method of claim 1 wherein said second location is disposed downstream of said first location by a distance at least equaling the combined length of a plurality of said image areas