Image processing apparatus

• US 20030058465A1
• Filed: 09/11/2002
• Published: 03/27/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Ouchi, Satoshi, Miyagi, Noriko
• Granted Patent: US 7,466,453 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.9
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/58 Edge or detail enhancement; Noise or error suppression, e.g. colour misregistration correction H04N1/62 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/6016 Conversion to subtractive colour signals

Abstract

An edge area is detected from an image as a first characteristic. It is possible that the first characteristic can not be detected. An edge is detected from the image as a second characteristic. The second characteristic is expanded. When the first characteristic is detected, the first characteristic is set as a third characteristic. When the first characteristic is can not be detected, the second characteristic is set as the third characteristic. Processing such as ink generating/under-color removing or intermediate tone processing or gamma correction is performed based on the third characteristic.

Claims

1. An image processing apparatus comprising:

a first characteristic detection unit that detects a first characteristic as binary information from an image;

a second characteristic detection unit that detects a second characteristic as N value information, where N is an integer equal to or greater than two, from the image;

a third characteristic detection unit that detects a third characteristic based on the first characteristic and the second characteristic; and

a control unit that provides a control to perform a specified processing to the image using the third characteristic.

2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the third characteristic detection unit

selects the first characteristic as the third characteristic when the first characteristic detection unit detects the first characteristic, and

selects the second characteristic detected by the second characteristic detection unit as the third characteristic when the first characteristic detection unit does not detect the first characteristic.

3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the third characteristic takes a maximum value when the third characteristic detection unit has selected the first characteristic.

4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first characteristic is an edge area, and the second characteristic is an edge.

5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the specified processing is any one of an ink generation processing, an under-color removal processing, a pseudo intermediate tone processing, and a gamma correction processing.