Album Creating Apparatus, Album Creating Method and Program Therefor

• US 20090225191A1
• Filed: 12/05/2006
• Published: 09/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujifilm Corporation (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fujifilm Corporation (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Yoshihara, Hideaki, Tachikawa, Kimiko, Zetsu, Shinsuke
• Granted Patent: US 8,111,303 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/231.200
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00132 in a digital photofinishing system, i.e. a system where digital photographic images undergo typical photofinishing processing, e.g. printing ordering
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00196 Creation of a photo-montage, e.g. photoalbum H04N1/0019 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/3875 combined with enlarging or reducing enlarging or reducing per se H04N1/393
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3214 of a date
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3215 of a time or duration

Abstract

An album creating apparatus is provided to insert a title appropriate for the timing at which the image stored in the album is captured. The album creating apparatus includes: an image acquiring section for acquiring a plurality of images in association with image capturing times; a reference time acquiring section for acquiring a reference time indicative of the time and date of a main event in an album; an image capturing timing specifying section for specifying an image capturing timing indicative of a period for the reference time acquired by the reference time acquiring section, which includes the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section; a title determining section for determining a title to be inserted into the album based on the image capturing timing specified by the image capturing timing specifying section; and an album creating section for creating the album by laying out the title determined by the title determining section and the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section.

Claims

1. An album creating apparatus comprising:

an image acquiring section for acquiring a plurality of images in association with image capturing time and dates;

a reference time acquiring section for acquiring a reference time indicative of the time and date of a main event in an album;

an image capturing timing specifying section for specifying an image capturing timing indicative of a period for the reference time acquired by the reference time acquiring section, which includes the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section;

a title determining section for determining a title to be inserted into the album based on the image capturing timing specified by the image capturing timing specifying section; and

an album creating section for creating the album by laying out the title determined by the title determining section and the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section.

2. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 1 further comprising a specified subject information acquiring section for acquiring specified subject information including the birthday of a main character in the album,

the reference time acquiring section acquiring the birthday of the main character included in the specified subject information acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section as the reference time indicative of the timing of the main event in the album.

3. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 1 further comprising a title storage section for storing a character sting inserted into the album in association with the image capturing timing,

the title determining section determines the title inserted into the album by using the character string stored in the title storage section in association with the image capturing timing specified by the image capturing timing specifying section.

4. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 1 further comprising an image classification section for classifying the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section into each page of the album,

the image capturing timing specifying section specifying the image capturing timing indicative of a period for the reference time acquired by the reference time acquiring section, which includes the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images classified into each page by the image classification section,

the title determining section determining a title to be inserted into each page of the album based on the image capturing timing specified by the image capturing timing specifying section, and

the album creating section creating the album by laying out the titles determined by the title determining section into each page of the album, respectively.

5. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 1 further comprising:

a template storage section for storing a template having an image layout frame into which an image should be laid out;

a color pallet storage section for storing a color pallet including a plurality of colors used for the template of the albumin association with the image capturing timing; and

a color pallet selecting section for selecting the color pallet stored in the color pallet storage section in association with the image capturing timing specified by the image capturing timing specifying section,

the album creating section applying the plurality of colors included in the color pallet selected by the color pallet selecting section to the template of the album.

6. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 5 further comprising:

a specified subject information acquiring section for acquiring specified subject information including an image of the main character in the album;

a main character image determining section for determining whether the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section includes the main character by comparing the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section with the image of the main character acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section;

a characteristic color extracting section for extracting a characteristic color among the plurality of colors included in the image determined by the main character image determining section as that the main character is included therein;

an applied color storage section for storing the color included in the color pallet stored in the color pallet storage section in association with a color range; and

a color used selecting section for selecting the color stored in the applied color storage section in association with the color range including the characteristic color extracted by the characteristic color extracting section,

the album creating section applying the color selected by the color used selecting section to the title determined by the title determining section.

7. An album creating method comprising:

acquiring a plurality of images in association with image capturing time and dates;

acquiring a reference time indicative of the time and date of a main event in an album;

specifying an image capturing timing indicative of a period for the reference time acquired in the reference time acquiring step, which includes the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired in the image acquiring step;

determining a title to be inserted into the album based on the image capturing timing specified in the image capturing timing specifying step; and

creating the album by laying out the title determined in the title determining step and the plurality of images acquired in the image acquiring step.

8. An program for an album creating apparatus for creating an album, the program causes the album creating apparatus to function as:

an image acquiring section for acquiring a plurality of images in association with image capturing time and dates;

a reference time acquiring section for acquiring a reference time indicative of the time and date of a main event in an album;

an image capturing timing specifying section for specifying an image capturing timing indicative of a period for the reference time acquired by the reference time acquiring section, which includes the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section;

a title determining section for determining a title to be inserted into the album based on the image capturing timing specified by the image capturing timing specifying section; and

an album creating section for creating the album by laying out the title determined by the title determining section and the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section.

9. An album creating apparatus comprising:

an image acquiring section for acquiring a plurality of images in association with image capturing time and dates;

a specified subject information acquiring section for acquiring specified subject information including a specified subject image being an image of a subject related to the main character in an album at a reference time indicative of the time and date of a main event in the album and a time before the reference time;

a pre-image selecting section for selecting the image acquired by the image acquiring section in association with an image capturing time and date before the reference time based on the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section and the reference time acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section;

a specified subject image determining section for determining whether the image selected by the pre-image selecting section includes the subject related to the main character by comparing the image selected by the image selecting section with the specified subject image acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section; and

an album creating section for creating the album with emphasizing the image determined by the specified subject image determining section as that a subject related to the main character is included therein.

10. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 9, wherein

the specified subject information acquiring section acquiring specified subject information including a specified subject image being an image of a subject related to the main character in the album at the reference time indicative of the time and date of the main event in the album and a time after the reference time,

the album creating apparatus further comprising a post-image selecting section for selecting the image acquired by the image acquiring section in association with an image capturing time and date after the reference time based on the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section and the reference time acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section,

the specified subject image determining section determining whether the image selected by the image selecting section includes the subject related to the main character by comparing the image selected by the image selecting section with the specified subject image acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section, and

the album creating section creating the album with emphasizing the image determined by the specified subject image determining section as that the subject related to the main character is included therein.

11. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 9, wherein

the specified subject information acquiring section acquiring specified subject information including the image of the parent of the main character and the birthday of the main character,

the pre-image selecting section selecting the image acquired by the image acquiring section in association with an image capturing time and date before the birthday of the main character based on the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section and the birthday of the main character acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section,

the specified subject image determining section determining whether the image selected by the image selecting section includes the parent of the main character by comparing the image selected by the image selecting section with the image of the parent of the main character acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section, and

the album creating section creates the album with emphasizing the image determined by the specified subject image determining section as that the parent of the main character is included therein.

12. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 11, wherein

the specified subject information acquiring section further acquiring an image of the main character in the album,

the album creating apparatus further comprising:

a post-image selecting section for selecting the image acquired by the image acquiring section in association with an image capturing time and date after the birthday of the main character based on the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section and the birthday of the main character acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section; and

a main character image determining section for determining whether the image selected by the image selecting section includes the main character by comparing the image selected by the post-image selecting section and the image of the main character acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section,

the album creating section creating the album with emphasizing the image determined by the main subject image determining section as that the main character is included therein.

13. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 11, wherein

the album creating section creating the album by determining a trimming range in which a characteristic portion of the subject related to the main character is emphasized in the image determined by the specified subject image determining section as that the subject related to the main character included therein and using a trimming image obtained by trimming the image by the determined trimming range.

14. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 13, wherein

the specified subject information acquiring section acquiring specified subject information including an image of the mother of the main character in the album and the birthday of the main character,

the pre-image selecting section selecting the image acquired by the image acquiring section in association with the image capturing time and date within a predetermined period before the birthday of the main character based on the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section and the birthday of the main character acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section,

the specified subject image determining section determining whether the image selected by the image selecting section includes the mother of the main character by comparing the image selected by the image selecting section with the image of the mother of the main character acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section, and

the album creating section creating the album by determining a trimming range in which the belly of the mother of the main character is emphasized in the image determined by the specified subject image determining section as that the mother of the main character is included therein and using a trimming image obtained by trimming the image by the determined trimming range.

15. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 11, wherein

the album creating section creating the album by selecting the image in which the characteristic portion of the subject related to the main character is located at the center thereof among the images determined by the specified subject image determining section as that the subject related to the main character is included therein and using the selected image.

16. The album creating apparatus as set forth in claim 15, wherein

the specified subject information acquiring section acquiring specified subject information including the image of the main character in the album, the image of the mother of the main character and the birthday of the main character,

the pre-image selecting section selecting the image acquired by the image acquiring section in association with an image capturing time and date within a predetermined period before the birthday of the main character based on the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section and the birthday of the main character acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section,

the specified subject image determining section determining whether the image selected by the image selecting section includes the mother of the main character by comparing the image selected by the image selecting section with the image of the mother of the main character acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section, and

the album creating section creating the album by selecting the image in which the belly of the mother of the main character is located at the center thereof among the images determined by the specified subject image determining section as that the mother of the main character is included therein.

17. An image creating method comprising:

acquiring a plurality of images in association with image capturing time and dates;

acquiring specified subject information including a specified subject image being an image of a subject related to the main character in an album at a reference time indicative of the time and date of a main event in the album and a time before the reference time;

selecting the image acquired in the image acquiring step in association with an image capturing time and date before the reference time based on the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired in the image acquiring step and the reference time acquired in the specified subject information acquiring step;

determining whether the image selected in the pre-image selecting step includes the subject related to the main character by comparing the image selected in the image selecting step with the specified subject image acquired in the specified subject information acquiring step; and

creating the album with emphasizing the image determined in the specified subject image determining step as that a subject related to the main character is included therein.

18. A computer readable medium storing thereon a program for an album creating apparatus for creating an album, the program causing the album creating apparatus to function as:

an image acquiring section for acquiring a plurality of images in association with image capturing time and dates;

a specified subject information acquiring section for acquiring specified subject information including a specified subject image being an image of a subject related to the main character in an album at a reference time indicative of the time and date of a main event in the album and a time before the reference time;

a pre-image selecting section for selecting the image acquired by the image acquiring section in association with an image capturing time and date before the reference time based on the image capturing time and dates of the plurality of images acquired by the image acquiring section and the reference time acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section;

a specified subject image determining section for determining whether the image selected by the pre-image selecting section includes the subject related to the main character by comparing the image selected by the image selecting section with the specified subject image acquired by the specified subject information acquiring section; and

an album creating section for creating the album with emphasizing the image determined by the specified subject image determining section as that a subject related to the main character is included therein.