IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE EXTRACTING DESIRED REGION TO BE USED AS MODEL FOR IMAGE CORRECTION

• US 20090244564A1
• Filed: 08/28/2008
• Published: 10/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Brother Industries Limited)
• Original Assignee: Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Brother Industries Limited)
• Inventors: KONDO, Masaki, HASEGAWA, Tomohiko
• Granted Patent: US 8,390,905 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.900
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/6075 Corrections to the hue

Abstract

An image processing device includes a first image inputting unit, a second image inputting unit, a first partial image extracting unit, a first characteristic quantity data determining unit, a second characteristic quantity data determining unit, and a correcting unit. The first image inputting unit inputs a first image. The second image inputting unit inputs a second image The first partial image extracting unit extracts a desired region of the first image as a first partial image. The first characteristic quantity data determining unit determines first characteristic quantity data based on the first partial image. The second characteristic quantity data determining unit determines second characteristic quantity data based on the second image. The correcting unit corrects the second image based on the first characteristic quantity data and the second characteristic quantity data.

Claims

1. An image processing device comprising:

a first image inputting unit that inputs a first image;

a second image inputting unit that inputs a second image;

a first partial image extracting unit that extracts a desired region of the first image as a first partial image;

a first characteristic quantity data determining unit that determines first characteristic quantity data based on the first partial image;

a second characteristic quantity data determining unit that determines second characteristic quantity data based on the second image; and

a correcting unit that corrects the second image based on the first characteristic quantity data and the second characteristic quantity data.

2. The image processing device according to claim 1, wherein the first image inputting unit inputs a first image including a photograph area, and

wherein the first partial image extracting unit extracts, as the first partial image, an area including at least a part of the photograph area from the first image.

3. The image processing device according to claim 1, wherein the first partial image extracting unit comprises:

a dividing unit that divides the first image into a plurality of divisional images;

a calculating unit that calculates a distribution of brightness values in each of the divisional images; and

an extracting unit that extracts the first partial image based on the distribution of brightness values in each of the divisional images.

4. The image processing device according to claim 3, wherein the calculating unit calculates variance or standard deviation of brightness values for each of the divisional images, and

wherein the extracting unit extracts, from among all the divisional images, a divisional image having the smallest variance or standard deviation as the first partial image.

5. The image processing device according to claim 1, further comprises a first image dividing unit that divides the first image into a plurality of divisional images;

a calculating unit that performs a calculation operation to calculate the variance or standard deviation of brightness values for each of the divisional images;

a selecting unit that selects a divisional image having the smallest calculated variance or standard deviation among the plurality of divisional images;

a dividing unit that performs a dividing operation to divide the divisional image having the smallest calculated variance or standard deviation; and

a control unit that controls the dividing unit to perform the dividing operation to divide the first image into a plurality of divisional images, and the calculating unit to perform the calculation operation to calculate the variance or standard deviation of brightness value, and

wherein the control unit controls the dividing unit, the calculating unit, and the selecting unit to repeat the dividing operation, calculating operation, and selecting operation when the variance or standard deviation for the divisional image having the smallest calculated variance or standard deviation is greater than the prescribed value

6. The image processing device according to claim 5, wherein the first partial image extracting unit further comprises an extracting unit that extracts a divisional image having the smallest calculated variance or standard deviation as the first partial image when the variance or standard deviation for the divisional image having the smallest calculated variance or standard deviation is less than or equal to a prescribed value.

7. The image processing device according to claim 5, wherein the first partial image extracting unit further comprises an extracting unit extracting the first partial image in such a manner that when there is only one divisional image having variance or standard deviation less than or equal to the prescribed value, the extracting unit extracts the one divisional image as the first partial image, and when there is a plurality of divisional images having variances or standard deviations less than or equal to the prescribed value, the extracting unit extracts a preceding image which has been divided into the divisional images as the first partial image.

8. The image processing device according to claim 1, further comprising a correction data creating unit that creates correction data based on the first characteristic quantity data and the second characteristic quantity data, and

wherein the image correcting unit corrects the second image based on the correction data.

9. The image processing device according to claim 1, wherein the first characteristic quantity data determining unit comprises:

a first dividing unit that divides a plurality of pixels constituting the first image into a plurality of hue-regions;

a first hue data determining unit that determines first hue-related data for each hue-region of the first image based an data of the first partial image; and

a first non-hue data determining unit that determines first non-hue-related data for each hue-region of the first image based on data of the first partial image,

wherein the second characteristic quantity data determining unit comprises;

a second dividing unit that divides a plurality of pixels constituting the second image into a plurality of hue-regions based on data of the second image;

a second hue data determining unit that determines second hue-related data for each hue-region of the second image based on data of the second image; and

a second non-hue data determining unit that determines second non-hue-related data for each hue-region of the second image,

wherein the correction data creating unit creates hue correction data based on the first hue data and second hue data,

wherein the image correcting unit creates a plurality of non-hue correction data corresponding to the plurality of hue-regions, and

wherein the correcting unit corrects hue-related data in each pixel of the second image based on the hue correction data, and corrects the non-hue-related data in each pixel of the second image based on the non-hue correction data of each hue-region.

10. The image processing device according to claim 9, wherein the first hue-related data is calculated based on H values of the pixels in the first partial image defined in the HSV color space, and

wherein the second hue-related data is calculated based on H values of the pixels in the second image defined in the HSV color space.

11. The image processing device according to claim 1, wherein the first image inputting unit inputs the first image optically read from a document placed on a prescribed reading positions and

wherein the second image inputting unit inputs the second image stored in a storage medium.

12. The image processing device according to claim 1, further comprising a printing unit that prints the corrected second image.

13. An image processing method comprising:

inputting a first image;

inputting a second image;

extracting a desired region of the first image as a first partial image;

determining first characteristic quantity data based on the first partial image;

determining second characteristic quantity data based on the second image; and

correcting the second image based on the first characteristic quantity data and the second characteristic quantity data.

14. A computer-readable recording medium that stores an image data processing program, the data processing program comprising instructions for:

inputting a first image;

inputting a second image;

extracting a desired region of the first image as a first partial image;

determining first characteristic quantity data based on the first partial image;

determining second characteristic quantity data based on the second image; and

correcting the second image based on the first characteristic quantity data and the second characteristic quantity data.