A heat-transfer imaging system and a method of using the same. The heat-transfer imaging system includes a heat-transfer sheet and an activating ink. The heat-transfer sheet and the activating ink are specially formulated so that only the areas of the heat-transfer sheet onto which the ink has been printed become adhesive under heat-transfer conditions. This effect may be achieved by designing the sheet to include an ink-receptive coating whose melting temperature is higher than that typically encountered during normal heat-transfer conditions and by formulating the activating ink to include a plasticizer that, when printed onto the ink-receptive coating, lowers the melting temperature of the ink-receptive coating sufficiently so that the modified melting temperature falls within the temperature range encountered during heat-transfer.