To efficiently put a character on a photographic print with a melt heat transfer by paying attention to the fact that a photographic printing position on the photographic print is decided in some extent with the characteristic of the color of an introduced character or illustration and narrowing a photographic printable position in each photographic printing color, so as to attain efficient photographic printing position setting.

When an operator first selects the roll and frame numbers of a negative for an image to be printed, an editing picture is obtained on a display. On this picture, information of the character, the illustration, a font and color is inputted. When the color information is inputted, a photographic printing region corresponding to the color is obtained on the display. The photographic printing position is set when it is selected. The input can be executed through a keyboard or a mouth. Thus, data on the formation of the image melt heat-transferred is prepared and retained in a floppy disk, as output data and then, the floppy disk in which the output data is stored is inserted into a personal computer for output.