IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, AND IMAGE PROCESSING PROGRAM FOR SUPERIOR IMAGE OUTPUT

• US 20100128981A1
• Filed: 01/27/2010
• Published: 05/27/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/24/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intellectuals High-Tech KFT
• Original Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Inventors: KURUMISAWA, Takashi, Ishida, Masanori
• Granted Patent: US 7,974,469 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/167
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/4074 using histograms
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/62 Retouching, i.e. modification of isolated colours only or in isolated picture areas only

Abstract

An image processing apparatus includes the following elements. An image data obtaining unit obtains image data. A sampling unit samples the image data. A statistic value determining unit determines a statistic value based on statistic information in a histogram with respect to a grayscale value of image data that is obtained by performing rough quantization and linear interpolation on the sampled image data. A correction-amount determining unit determines a correction amount to be used for image processing based on the statistic value. An image processing unit performs the image processing according to the correction amount.

Claims

1. An image processing apparatus comprising:

an image data obtaining circuit that obtains image data having first image data and second image data of a lower resolution than the first image data, the image data being capable of having a first number of grayscale values;

a sampling circuit that samples the image data;

a statistic value determining circuit that determines a statistic value based on statistic information of a histogram, the histogram being created by quantizing the sampled image data into a second number of grayscale values less than the first number of grayscale values and linearly interpolating the quantized data back into the first number of grayscale values;

a correction-amount determining circuit that determines a first correction amount to be used for image processing to the first image data and a second correction amount to be used for image processing to the second image data based on the statistic value; and

an image processing circuit that performs the image processing to the first image data according to the first correction amount and performs the image processing to the second image data according to the second correction amount.

2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the correction-amount determining circuit includes a correction-amount adjusting circuit that determines a ratio of pixels having a specific color in all pixels based on the sampled image data and that adjusts the correction amount according to the ratio of the pixels having the specific color.

3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein an image defined by the image data is divided into a central area and a surrounding area surrounding the central area, and

the sampling circuit includes a divisional area sampling circuit that samples the image data in the central area and the surrounding area at a low resolution.

4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the correction-amount determining circuit includes a backlit-image determining circuit that determines whether or not the image data is backlit image data using the histogram and a statistic value that is determined based on sampled image data in the central area and the surrounding area.

5. An image processing method comprising:

obtaining image data having first image data and second image data of lower resolution than the first image data, the image data being capable of having a first number of grayscale values;

sampling the image data;

determining a statistic value based on statistic information of a histogram, the histogram being created by quantizing the sampled image data into a second number of grayscale values less than the first number of grayscale values and linearly interpolating the quantized data back into the first number of grayscale values;

determining a first correction amount to be used for image processing of the first image data and a second correction amount to be used for image processing of the second image data based on the statistic value; and

performing the image processing to the first image data according to the first correction amount and performing the image processing to the second image data according to the second correction amount,

wherein at least one of the above steps are performed by a processor.

6. A computer-readable storage medium storing an image processing program to be executed by an image processing apparatus including a control circuit to cause the image processing apparatus to function as:

an image data obtaining unit that obtains image data having first image data and second image data of lower resolution than the first image data, the image data being capable of having a first number of grayscale values;

a sampling unit that samples the image data;

a statistic value determining unit that determines a statistic value based on statistic information of a histogram, the histogram being created by quantizing the sampled image data into a second number of grayscale values less than the first number of grayscale values and linearly interpolating the quantized data back into the first number of grayscale values;

a correction-amount determining unit that determines a first correction amount to be used for image processing of the first image data and a second correction amount to be used for image processing of the second image data based on the statistic value; and

an image processing unit that performs the image processing to the first image data according to the first correction amount and performs image processing to the second image data according to the second correction amount.