Patent ID: 7376268
Filing Date: 2008-05-20
Classification: G06K,G06T,H04N

Abstract:
1. An image processing apparatus, comprising: a determining unit configured to determine image characteristics of areas in an image data corresponding to an image, said determining unit includes an edge separation unit configured to detect a character edge from the image data, a halftone detecting unit configured to determine whether a target pixel is halftone or non-halftone, and a color determining unit configured to determine whether the target pixel is chromatic or achromatic, and said determining unit is configured to generate area data corresponding to each of the areas based at least in part on the character edge detected by the edge separation unit; a memory configured to store the image data and the area data in a correlated manner; an image processing unit including a gamma correction unit, a color correction unit, and a gradation processing unit, wherein said gamma correction unit is configured to effect a gamma correction, using an S-shaped gamma curve line, on specific image data stored in the memory when the specific image data is determined to be a character area as a result of edge-detecting, said gamma correction unit is configured to effect the gamma correction, using a linear gamma line, on the specific image data stored in the memory when the specific image data is determined to be a non-edge area as a result of edge-detecting; said color correction unit is configured to convert a pixel of the specific image data from CMYK image data to RGB image data in such a way that chroma is heightened when the pixel of the specific image data is determined to be a color character, and that respective values of R, G, and B are equal to each other when the pixel of the specific image data is determined to be a black character, and said image gradation processing unit is configured to effect a simple binarization process where a binarizing threshold value is set low on the pixel of the specific image data when the pixel of the specific image data is determined to be a character area as a result of edge detecting; said image gradation processing unit is configured to effect a multi-dither process on the pixel of the specific image data when the pixel of the specific image data is determined to be in a picture area as a result of edge detecting; an image format conversion unit configured to convert a file format of the RGB image data processed by the image processing unit into a general-purpose image file format; and a transmission unit configured to send the image data in the general-purpose image file format to an external device.