How to recover Digicel and FLOW Jamaica Credit on faded Thermal Receipts

I’m sure many Jamaicans have had this problem with purchasing voucher credit from Digicel or FLOW; reading their paper based voucher credit.

This as the paper voucher credit is printed using a thermal printer. Thermal paper is just regular paper made with some chemicals that reacts with heat, turning black to form words and images on the paper.

This is an advantage to companies that print receipts, as they will fade with time, going back to the white color of the paper.  However, this isn’t exactly true! You can actual restore the images and word via various techniques that do the following:

1.      Restore the images and words back to their original black colour

2.      Reduce or increase the whiteness of the paper

Thus, using these techniques, any information written on a Thermal paper can be revealed. So how do we do this?

Restore the images and words - Heat treatments methods that restore Thermal Paper

You can reveal the images and words on a thermal paper by the re-application of heat via various methods.

One method involves the use of a laminator or document scanner. These devices use high intensity light to scan documents and the heat of the light will increase the visibility of the images and words. Additionally the scan generated will expose what was written on the printed thermal paper receipt.

Equally, if you have a high intensity UV Lamp, similar to those used in sauna rooms, you can lay the paper under a flat sheet of transparent glass sheet for about 15 minutes to achieve the same results. In this case, you're also heating the paper with high intensity UV Radiation, making the images and words visible again.

Even better, if you do not have a UV lamp, you can use a very clean dry electric iron or a hairdryer. Lay the Thermal paper with the writing side facing down and run the iron quickly over the thermal paper. The chemicals will react with the direct conducted heat from the clean dry electric iron, making the image or words visible once more.

Reduce or increase the whiteness of the paper - Digital Software and Photocopier to restore Receipts

If you have a desktop scanner handy, you can scan the thermal printed receipts that are faded.

Then using software such as Photoshop, which is also great for removing background in images used in making e-book covers a described in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “How to remove Image Backgrounds to make an e-book cover”, you can use the Effect editor to work out the resolution of the colour and enhance it in order to make the images and words visible again.

Another technique that a little quicker is to simply use a black and white photocopier! Set it to the blackest possible level the contrast as sharp as possible and then photocopy the thermal receipt.

The process will copy the receipt and produce a high resolution image that increases the printed images and letters on the receipt, making them visible again.

Thermal paper Glows in the Dark - Photographer's technique to read Receipts

This next method is often use by the Jamaican Police to reveal information written on thermally printed receipts or anything written in indelible ink e.g. lime juice, urine or blood; exposure to UV (Ultravoilet) radiation.

This is the same light that reveals blood, duster fingerprints and glow-in-the-dark Jamaican Toto as described in my blog article entitled “How to make Glow-in-the-Dark Jamaica Cassava Toto”.  

Most of these substances actually glow under UV, so the technique involves exposing the receipt to UV rays in a dark room. When you turn on the UV lamp and then turn it off after about 1 minute, you'll notice that the images and words on the thermally printed receipt glow in the dark. Use a non flash High resolution Digital camera to take a picture of the receipt while in the Dark room.

In so doing, you would have exposed, pun intended, the information on the Digicel or FLOW Jamaica voucher receipt and reclaim your Credit which was lost!