System and method for selectively printing color content of a page with a reduced color gamut and billing based on printed content

A system and related method for selectively printing color content of a page with a reduced color gamut are provided. The system includes a detection module, a printing mode module, and a conversion module. The detection module is configured to detect a color object in the page and the printing mode module exists in at least one mode. The conversion module can selectively convert the detected color object to a converted reduced-colorant object in accordance with the existence of the at least one mode of the printing mode module.

BACKGROUND

1. Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to printing content of a page, and, in particular, to a system and method for selectively printing color content of a page with a reduced color gamut.

2. Description of Related Art

Modern color printing systems mark a printing substrate with patterns of lines or small dots of oval or round shape onto the printing substrate (e.g., a page can be printed on a piece of paper). The color printing system can mark the printing substrate with multiple inks or toners with differing colors generally referred to as colorants. Although most color printing systems have only four available colorants of toner (or ink), a much wider variety of colors are available for perception because of physiological and psychophysical aspects of human vision.

The set of colors of toner (or ink) that are chosen to create the wider variety of perceived colors is generally referred to as the color gamut. The most typically used color gamut is the “CMYK” color gamut. The “C” refers to Cyan toner, the “M” refers to “Magenta” toner, the “Y” refers to the “Yellow” toner, and the “K” refers to the “Black” toner. Although there are only three types of color receptors in the human eye (and one additional type of receptor for night vision), four toner colors are generally used because black toners are cheaper, and it is more efficient to use a black toner than to combine the cyan, magenta, and yellow toners to make a black color, e.g., a black toner dries faster than when combing the three aforementioned toners to make a black marking on the substrate. The cost of the toner (or ink) should be taken into consideration when printing color and/or monochrome pages.

However, the cost of the toner is usually only about 20% to 30% of the averaged marginal cost of printing a single page (e.g., a page can be printed on the substrate), and it is more expensive to print color pages rather than monochrome pages. Additionally, it is more expensive to print color pages than to print pages using a reduced color gamut, e.g., using only cyan, magenta, and black colorants. The dominant cost of the total marginal cost of printing a page is that particular page's proportionate service cost. Additionally, the service cost varies depending upon the content of the page. The service cost includes technician costs, repair costs, IT infrastructure costs, field offices costs, managers' and engineers' salaries, parts costs, labor costs, and the like.

The business model employed by many entities involved in color printing includes charging one fee for printing a monochrome page and another fee for printing a color page. The color pages are charged at a higher rate when compared to printing monochrome pages partly because of the increased service cost. This fee is sometimes referred to as a “per click” fee. This “per click” fee is an additional fee that is applied to each particular piece of printed page that attempts to account for the service cost. The per click service fee includes an estimated toner cost, a risk premium cost, and (depending on the arrangement) a profit margin. The risk premium cost is an estimated service cost that a particular piece of printing substrate will probabilistically cause a party to incur a service expense. Printing a color page has a significantly higher probability of incurring additional service costs as compared to printing a monochrome page.

However, the traditional “per click” fee is simply one of two predetermined fixed fees. When a user prints a purely monochrome page the per click fee is considered to be one rate and a different rate when printing a color page. This is sometimes referred to as the “one size fits all billing approach” and is simply billing one fee for printed monochrome pages and another fee for printed color pages, regardless of the content in the printed page. For example, the “per click” fee may be $0.01 (U.S) per monochrome printed page and $0.08 (U.S.) per color printed page.

The “one size fits all billing approach” doesn't generally take into account the objects that are in the page but only if the page is printed wholly in color or wholly in monochrome. For example, there are several types of objects that may be included in a page. Some of the types of objects that may be part of a page are: monochrome contone objects, color contone objects, monochrome text objects, color text objects, monochrome line art objects, color line art objects, monochrome graphic objects, color graphic objects, monochrome low frequency halftone objects, color low frequency halftone objects, monochrome high frequency halftone objects, color high frequency halftone objects, monochrome solid fill objects, and color solid fill objects. The service costs associated with the several objects vary. Additionally, any color objects may be printed (or contained within a page) using only two, or three colorants forming two-colorant objects, and three-colorant objects, respectively.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure relates to printing content of a page, and, in particular, to a system and method for selectively printing color content of a page with a reduced color gamut.

In an aspect of the present disclosure, a system for selectively printing color content of a page with a reduced color gamut includes a detection module, a printing mode module, and a conversion module. The detection module can detect a color object in the page and the printing mode module can exist in a mode (or multiple modes). The conversion module can selectively convert the detected color object to a converted reduced-colorant equivalent object that uses less ink/toner based upon the existence of a mode (or modes) of the printing mode module. The converted reduced-colorant object may be a monochrome object, a two-colorant object, or a three-colorant object. The page referred to may be a scanned page, an image of a page, a page description language page, a printed page, a copied page, a computer-memory based page, a hard-drive based page, a raster page, and a vector graphics page. Additionally or alternatively, the converted reduced-colorant object may be in a windowed region of the page that is determined during autowindowing on the page

The printing mode module can exist in one or more of the following modes: a reduced-colorant only mode, a full color mode, a color text mode, a color line art mode, a color line art and text mode, a color graphics mode, and a color solid fill mode, however, the reduced-colorant only mode and the full color mode may be exclusive to other modes.

Additionally, the detection module may be configured to detect several types of color objects. The detection module can detect color contone objects, color text objects, color line art objects, color graphic objects, color low frequency halftone objects, color high frequency halftone objects, and color solid fill objects.

The conversion module acts in accordance with the printing mode module. When the printing mode module exists in a reduced-colorant only mode, the conversion module converts the detected color object to the converted reduced-colorant object regardless of the type of the detected color object. However, when the printing mode module exists in a full color mode, the conversion module does not convert the detected color object (or any of the other detected color objects) to a converted reduced-colorant object. Additionally or alternatively, the conversion module may be non-functional during the full color mode.

The printing mode module can exist in a color text mode as well. When the printing mode module exists in the color text mode the conversion module does not covert a detected color object to a converted monochrome object when the detected color object is a color text object. Additionally or alternatively, when the printing mode module exists in a color line art mode, the conversion module does not covert a detected color object to a converted reduced-colorant object when the detected color object is a color line art object.

The system can also use a color line art and text mode. When the printing mode module exists in the color line art and text mode, the conversion module does not covert a detected color object to a converted reduced-colorant object when the detected color object is a color line art object and/or a color text object.

In yet another aspect of the present disclosure, the system can utilize a color graphics mode and a color solid fill mode. When the printing mode module exists in the color graphics mode, the conversion module does not convert a detected color object to the converted reduced-colorant object when the detected color object is a color graphics object. Similarly, when the printing mode module exists in the color solid fill mode, the conversion module does not convert the detected object to the converted reduced-colorant object when the detected color object is a color solid fill object.

In another aspect of the present disclosure, the system may further include a user selection component and/or a billing module. The user selection component may be in operative communication with the printing mode module and/or the conversion module. The user selection component can communicate a first user selection and/or a second user selection. The first user selection selects for the existence of a mode of the printing mode module. The second user selection selects such that the converted reduced-colorant object is one of a monochrome object, a two-colorant object, and a three-colorant object. The billing module can calculate a fee for printing the page based upon the existence of a mode (or modes) of the printing mode module.

In another aspect of the present disclosure, the system disclosed herein and the related method may be implemented by an operative set of processor executable instructions and may be configured for execution on one or more processors. Additionally or alternatively, the system can be an installable module. The installable module may be installable in a xerographic system, an electrostatographic system, a printing system, a photocopying system, or the like.

In another aspect of the present disclosure, a method for selectively printing color content of a page with a reduced color gamut is disclosed. The method includes the steps of detecting a color object in the page and selectively converting the detected color object to a converted reduced-colorant object in accordance with the existence of a mode (or modes) of a printing mode module. The mode of the printing mode module can be one or more of a reduced-colorant only mode, a full color mode, a color text mode, a color line art mode, a color line art and text mode, a color graphics mode, and a color solid fill mode, and similarly to the above system, the method can detect color contone objects, color text objects, color line art objects, color graphic objects, color low frequency halftone objects, color high frequency halftone objects, and color solid fill objects. The method may further include the step of determining the approximate area of coverage of the detected color object. The reduced-colorant object may be one of a monochrome object, a two-colorant object, or a three-colorant object.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIGS. 1A and 1Bshow pages100and102that include monochrome and color objects. Page100includes color text objects104,106, and108. Additionally, page102includes color text objects110,112,114,116,118,120, and122. Page100also includes color high frequency halftone objects124and126, color graphic object128, and color line art object130. Pages100and102contain a significant amount of monochrome objects as well.

One prior art system has only two mutually exclusive modes for printing page content. The prior art system either prints a color page in “full color” or in “monochrome only”. These two ways of printing correspond to a full color mode and a monochrome only mode, respectively. In the full color mode, all of the color objects in the page were printed in color. In the monochrome only mode, all of the color objects were converted to monochrome objects before (or simultaneously with) marking the page on a substrate (e.g., printing a page on a sheet of paper).

These two prior art modes can be used in conjunction with any printing technology, including a computer printing system, a copying machine, a xerographic system, an electrostatographic system, a printing system, a photocopying system, or the like. Pages100and102can be printed using the prior art system that has only a full color and a monochrome only modes. However, many entities involved in color printing bill the pages depending on which mode is used to print the page. For example, a color page that is printed in full color may be billed at about $0.08 (U.S.) per page while a monochrome only printed page may be billed at about $0.01 (U.S.) per page.

Additionally, many of the entities that use the prior art system bill for a printed page based upon whether the page was printed in the monochrome only mode or the full color mode accordingly, regardless of the content of the page (e.g., types of objects in the page). Therefore, a page with some color text objects is billed at the same rate as a page with huge graphic objects and/or high frequency halftone objects. For example, pages100and102are billed at the same rate when printed using the full color mode despite that page100has significantly more complex color objects than compared to page102, e.g., high frequency halftone objects124and126are included in page100and probabilistically incur additional service costs.

Because of the significant price difference between printing pages using the full color mode versus using the monochrome only mode, many system administrators of shared printing resources prevent users from printing in color or restrict their use. As mentioned above, printing color pages generally has an increased service cost as compared to printing monochrome pages. However, different types of color objects have different effects on the aggregate service cost. For example, printing a page having color text with the remainder of the page being in monochrome does not generally incur additional service costs as compared to printing a page in monochrome only. Additionally, color text objects do not use as much toner as compared to color graphic objects, and color high or low frequency halftone objects. Additionally, printing a color object with fewer than all of the colorants available is also cheaper than printing the object in full color, e.g., it is cheaper to print a color object with only 2 out of 4 colorants of the color gamut than printing the object with all 4 colorants.

Field data indicates that most of the service cost of printing color pages is related to printing a subset of the commonly used color objects. Specifically, color high and low frequency halftone objects, logos, and color solid fill objects tend to dominate the service cost incurred by printing color pages. Additionally, many of the raster image processing performance issues are related to printing complex color objects contained within a print job, which also generates several customer problems that increase service costs. However, there are substantially fewer instances of problems, and hence lower service costs, related to color texts objects and color line art objects.

Therefore, additional modes are disclosed herein that use less toner (or ink) and have less service cost associated with the printed color pages. These additional modes facilitate the implementation of a more robust billing strategy. For an illustration of these additional modes, refer toFIG. 2.

FIG. 2is a block diagram illustrating a system200for selectively printing color content of a page with a reduced color gamut and billing for the printed page based upon the printed content in accordance with the present disclosure. System200includes printing mode module202, conversion module204, and detection module206. System200may be implemented in hardware, software, software in execution, firmware, or some combination thereof. Additionally or alternatively, system200may be implemented by processing module208that includes processor210and memory212. Memory212includes instructions214, data216, stack218and heap220. Additionally or alternatively, system200may be implemented by instruction214.

Page222is shown and includes monochrome contone object224, monochrome text object226, monochrome line art object228, monochrome graphic object230, monochrome low frequency halftone object232, monochrome high frequency (abbreviated as “freq.”) halftone object234, monochrome solid fill object236, color contone object238, color text object240, color line art object242, color graphic object244, color low freq. halftone object246, color high freq. halftone object248, and color solid fill object250. Also, page222may be representative of any page (e.g., pages100and102ofFIGS. 1A and 1B) and is used only to illustrate some of the variety of objects that can be detected by detection module206and used by system200; however, system200may use a page that includes any combinations of objects or no objects.

Detection module206can detect one or more of objects224through250and is in communication with conversion module204. Additionally or alternatively, detection module206can count the number of pixels of the detected object during ripping or autowindowing to facilitate billing based upon the area of coverage of objects224through250as well. Also, detection module206can detect objects during autowindowing. The autowindowing technique is described in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,850,474 entitled, “Apparatus and method for segmenting and classifying image data” and U.S. Pat. No. 6,240,205 entitled, “Apparatus and method for segmenting and classifying image data”, both of which are assigned to the present assignee and are hereby incorporated by reference.

Conversion module204can convert one or more of color objects224through236resulting in processed page252. Processed page252may be similar or identical to page222, but processed page252may contain one or more of color objects238through250that are converted to a respective reduced-colorant object by conversion module204. For example, conversion module204can convert color low freq. halftone object246to a converted reduced-colorant low freq. halftone object (not depicted in processed page252). A reduced-colorant object is an object that is printed using less than all of the available colorants, e.g., using cyan, magenta, and black, and not using yellow when the printing system has a CMYK color gamut. A monochrome object is an object that is printed (or contained within a page) using a single colorant, e.g., black and white, and/or grayscale.

Conversion module204can selectively convert one of the color objects238through250depending on the existence of one or more modes within printing mode module202. The possible printing modes of printing mode module202are reduced-colorant mode254, full color mode256, color text mode258, color line art mode260, color line art and text mode262, color graphics mode264, and color solid fill mode268. Although modes254through268are depicted within printing mode module202, this depiction is only to illustrate that more than one mode may be in existence rather than all of the depicted modes always being in existence. Additionally or alternatively, modes254through268may or may not be mutually exclusive. For example, color graphics mode264may be in existence simultaneously with color text mode258. However, the existence of reduced-colorant only mode254may be mutually exclusive to the existence of full color mode256.

Conversion module204converts all color objects (e.g., color objects238through250) to a corresponding converted reduced-colorant object (not depicted in processed page252) regardless of the color object type, when the printing mode module202has reduced-colorant only mode254in existence. Also, conversion module204does not convert any color objects to a corresponding reduced-colorant object when printing mode module202has full color mode256in existence.

Color text mode258, when in existence, is communicated to conversion module204via interaction with printing mode module202ensuring that conversion module204does not convert color text object240to a converted reduced-colorant text object (not depicted within processed page252). Likewise, color line art mode260, when in existence causes conversion module204not to convert a color line art object to a reduced-colorant object, e.g., color line art object242. Color line art and text mode262ensures that any color line art objects or color text objects (e.g., color line art object242and color text object240) are not converted to corresponding converted reduced-colorant objects.

Color graphics mode264and color solid fill mode268ensure that conversion module204does not convert a color graphic object or a color solid fill object, respectively, to corresponding reduced-colorant objects.

Therefore, conversion module204selectively converts color objects238through250, based upon the object type and the existence of one or more of modes254through268of printing mode module202. The resulted page is processed page252that can be marked on a substrate by marking engine270. Marking engine270may be part of a xerographic system, an electrostatographic system, a printing system, and/or a photocopying system.

Billing module272calculates a fee for printing processed page252based upon the existence of one or more of modes254through268. For example, consider that color line art and text mode262is in existence and page222is processed by conversion module204resulting in processed page252. In this example, page222has color contone object238, color graphic object244, color low freq. halftone object246, color high freq. halftone object248, and color solid fill object250converted to a reduced-colorant contone object, a reduced-colorant graphic object, a reduced-colorant low freq. halftone object, a reduced-colorant high freq. object, and a reduced-colorant solid fill object, respectively, contained within processed page252. However, in this example, conversion module204did not change color text object240or color line art object242; and both are contained in their original color within processed page252for printing on a substrate using marking engine270. In this example, billing mode module272calculates an intermediate fee between the cheapest fee of printing a monochrome only page and the most expensive fee that is used when printing a full color page. This intermediate fee is based upon the existence of color line art and text mode262, facilitating a more robust billing scheme and/or whether each of the color objects238through250are converted to a respective monochrome object, two-colorant object, and/or three-colorant object.

Additionally or alternatively, user selection component274gives a user the ability to select for the existence of one or more of modes254through268. For example, user selection component274may be a software component that a network administrator can configure for allowing a user of the network to have the ability to print a certain number of full color, color line art and text, and reduced-colorant only pages. Additionally or alternatively, user selection component274may include a button on the face of a printing system enabling a user to select one or more of modes254through268. User selection component274may also allow a user to select whether or not the converted reduced-colorant object is converted to a respective monochrome object, two-colorant object, or three-colorant object

While referring simultaneously toFIGS. 1A and 2, also consider the following example. Page100includes color text objects104,106and108. Page100also includes color high freq. halftone objects124and126, and color graphic128. For exemplary purposes only, assume that printing mode module202ofFIG. 2has only the color line art and text mode262in existence. Page100can be processed by conversion module204resulting in a processed page (e.g., similar to processed page252). Because printing mode module202has only color line art and text mode262in existence, color high frequency halftone objects124and126are converted to two converted reduced-colorant high freq. halftone objects during (or before) printing page100onto a substrate. By using this mode, page100is printed in such a manner as to avoid printing objects that are more likely to incur service costs, but still has some color objects. Various other combinations are possible as well.

Referring to the drawings,FIG. 3is a flow chart diagram of a method300for selectively printing color content of a page with a reduced color gamut. Method300starts at step302and can detect a color object in the page (e.g., page222) during step304. Step306can selectively convert the detected color object to a converted reduced-colorant object in accordance with the existence of a mode (or modes) of printing mode module202. The converted reduced-colorant object may one of a monochrome object, a two-colorant object, or a three-colorant object. Step306can result in processed page252. Step308can determine the approximate area of coverage of the detected color object. Step308may determine the approximate area of coverage of one or more detected color objects by counting the number of pixels of the detected object. Additionally or alternatively, step308may occur during ripping and/or during using the autowindowing technique mentioned supra.

During typical computer printing jobs, the area of coverage of a detected object is easily determined by counting the number of pixels during ripping. For photocopy jobs, it is more efficient to use the autowindowing technique discussed supra. Additionally, step304can use the autowindowing technique discussed above to differentiate between differing types of objects (e.g., text objects from line art objects). Using the windowed areas, method300(or system200) can selectively convert the windowed objects to reduced-colorant object and leave the non-windowed regions to be reproduced as accurately as possible (or vice versa in another embodiment).

In the embodiments discussed in detail supra, only the CMYK color gamut was mentioned; however, it is envisioned that in other embodiments with other color gamuts may be used. For example, a color object based off of a color gamut having ‘N’ colorants may be converted to reduced-colorant object using only ‘M’ number of colorants in the color gamut as long as M<N. In the examples, we have mentioned about automatic conversion of color objects to monochrome, but this idea can be applied to convert any ‘N’ colorant printing mode to ‘M’ colorant printing mode as long as M<N. In the CMYK color gamut example used, M is 1 and N is 4 and, e.g., M may be 1 when the converted reduced-colorant object is a monochrome object.