Patent ID: 8243308
Filing Date: 2012-08-14
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An image processing apparatus comprising: an image reading unit that reads a document to obtain electronic image data; an image writing unit that prints an image on a recording medium, wherein the image writing unit has a writing unit reproducibility capability and a writing unit tone-processing capability; a storing unit that stores therein the image data and supplemental information of the image data; an external interface unit that exchanges the image data and the supplemental information with an external device having an external device reproducibility capability and an external device tone-processing capability; a first image-data processing unit that processes first image data input from the image reading unit; and a second image-data processing unit that processes received image data for supply to a target destination, by converting resolution and number of tones of the received image data to another resolution and number of tones, according to target reproducibility capability and target tone-processing capability of the destination, wherein the first image-data processing unit processes the first image data into unified image data having pre-defined characteristics that render the unified image data usable in each of the image writing unit and the external device, converts the supplemental information to converted supplemental information, in accordance with an image quality mode set when the document is read by the image reading unit, and stores the unified image data with the converted supplemental information in the storing unit, and wherein in a case that the second image-data processing unit is converting target image data for outputting to the image writing unit, the second image-data processing unit converts the target image data of a specific resolution and specific number of tones into converted image data of converted data resolution and converted number of tones, according to the writing unit reproducibility capability and the writing unit tone-processing capability, respectively, of the image writing unit, and in a case that the second image-data processing unit is converting the target image data for outputting to the external device, the second image-data processing unit converts the target image data of the specific resolution and the specific number of tones into output image data of output data resolution and output number of tones, according to the external device reproducibility capability and the external device tone-processing capability, respectively, of the external device.