Patent ID: 6744532
Filing Date: 2004-06-01
Classification: G06K

Abstract:
A method for enhancing printing quality of gray level and color images, comprising the following steps:A) performing a CMKY halftone process wherein a document to be printed is converted to a CMKY image and a halftone process is carried out for each CMKY color to determine a color of a pixel in an image to be printed; B) performing a CMY conversion wherein the document to be printed is converted to a CMY image to detect an edge in each CMY color simultaneously; C) performing an edge detection by determining a presence of an edge feature by a gray level difference in the document to be printed, no process being carried out if no edge feature is detected, an edge feature being recorded if the edge feature is detected; D) allocating a feature record of an edge pixel according to a change in a printing mode to determine whether each edge pixel is printed; and E) performing a conversion of CMY edge pixels to CMKY edge pixels; wherein said edge detection step includes the steps of: determining an initial value of the edge feature; calculating image data covered by an m by n window wherein m and n are integers between 2 and 5, an edge threshold is modified by edge feature of an edge gray level difference by an edge operator, and the feature record of an edge pixel is found by an edge directive from the edge operator; modifying the edge threshold responsive to an edge feature value in a row being larger than an initial edge threshold, the edge threshold being modified by being weighted and provides the edge threshold of next row of the image data; recording the edge feature of a pixel using two bytes of data, the data including a location of a black pixel, and edge modification coefficient, and the direction of the black pixel and a white pixel; responding to an existence of an edge within the image data of the m by n window, where the edge is established by the edge feature value being larger than the initial edge threshold, the edge feature being recorded in a preferred pixel by an interpolation and error diffusion method; and, modifying the edge feature value using two rows of data with a direction feature responsive to two diagonally adjacent data represent black pixels and the same edge directive, one of the two diagonally adjacent being modified such that the edge direction of the two diagonally adjacent data are near a center of an adjacent point.