Image modification to reduce susceptibility to misregistration

Abstract: A method for making continuous-tone, raster color images that are less susceptible to the effects of misregistration is described. For each pixel the present method determines the component-wise maximum positive color difference for the pixel from its neighbors. A fraction of this difference is then determined and then added to each pixel's color value, thus eliminating annoying white space between color transitioning in pixels. The particular fractional value is a function of the pixel's luminance.

Description: The present invention is related to methods for trapping images wherein adjacent pixels within an image area use differing colors which sometimes result in an annoying white border between color transitions and, more particularly, to a method and system of trapping images rendered in a continuous tone raster wherein component-wise maximum positive colorant differences are determined from neighboring pixels for each pixel a fraction of said difference is then added to the pixel's colorant values resulting in values somewhere between the maximum neighboring and original values for each color component resulting in an image that is less susceptible to gaps because of misregistration at color transitions. Background of the invention Color printing is typically carried out by printing three or four color separations, (e.g. cyan, magenta, yellow and black). Intermediate colors are made by printing mixtures of various amounts of these primary colors. It is possible, however, to specify pairs of colors that have little or no common components. For example, pure cyan and pure magenta, or an orange made from yellow and some magenta and a dark cyan made from cyan and black. If adjacent areas of an image use two such colors, then a potential problem arises. The problem occurs if the registration between color components is not perfect. If the color separations are not perfectly aligned, then a gap can occur at the boundary between the two colors and the white of the paper can show through. This is considered objectionable and a technique known as trapping is used to reduce it. Trapping is usually thought of as moving the boundary for one of the colored areas so that it overlaps the neighboring area. If one is dealing with graphical objects, this amounts to spreading or bloating an object, or in choking or shriking its background. The layout of a page or graphic image depends upon combining "structured graphics" according to a pre-established graphic design. The structured graphics are contiguous regions of color, usually represented in a plurality of separation images, which represent a succession of graphic objects imaged on the printing medium (e.g. the "paper"): The objects so imaged are shapes which can be isolated from each other, can abut one another at one or more points, can partially overlap one another, or can completely overlap one another. The resulting printed page or graphic image is therefore made up of a patchwork of shapes representing the graphic objects, some of which are "clipped" by objects imaged later in the succession. The result of abutting or overlapping shapes is a boundary between adjacent regions of color which, under ideal printing conditions should have zero width. That is, the one color should stop exactly where the other begins, with no new colors introduced along the boundary by the printing process itself. The "colors" which fill the shapes can be solid colors, tints, degrades, contone images, or "no fill" (i.e., the paper with no ink applied). In general, the "colors" represented in these adjacent regions are printed using more than one colorant. In practice therefore, the realization of a zero width boundary between regions of different color is impossible as a result of small but visible misregistration problems from one printed separation to another. The error is manifested as a "light leak" or as a visible boundary region of an undesired color. The problem of misregistration is a mechanical problem, almost always existing in printing systems. The problem arises because color separations are not laid exactly where intended, due to inherent imperfections in any separation registration process. It is somewhat correctable by mechanical registration methods; however it is rarely completely correctable. In expensive, high end printing processes, customers have high expectations that misregistration artifacts will not be visible. In inexpensive, low end printers, mechanical registration techniques are so expensive as to make correction or trapping essential. As will become apparent, different printing technologies have distinct misregistration artifacts. Offset printing tends to have uniform misregistration in all directions. However, xerographic printing tends to have misregistration primarily in a single direction. Methods for correcting for this misregistration are known in the prior art. The general approach is to expand one of the regions which abut so as to fill the gap or misregistration border region with a color determined so as to minimize the visual effect when printed. Borders which are expanded from a region of one color to another in this manner are said to be "spread". A border which has been so expanded is referred to as a "trap", and the zone within which color is added is called the "trap zone". Commonly used methods for automatic trapping of digital images fall into the categories of vector-based and raster-based methods. Vector-based methods rely on images that have been converted from a page-description language form, describing objects as characters, polygonal shapes, etc. into an internal data structure containing not only object information, but also a list of all the edges between regions of different color. Raster-based methods rely on images that have been first scanned or converted for page-description based form and are stored internally as a sequence of (high resolution) scan lines each containing individual scan elements or pixels. These methods process each raster line in sequence and compare one or more adjacent pixels to determine color boundaries. After some initial processing to find edges, both vector-based and raster-based methods apply rules for determining whether or not to create a trap at such boundaries, and finally apply a second set of rules to determine the nature of the trap if one is to be created. Thus, it can be seen that most trapping processes takes the following format which shall be referenced throughout this discussion A. Find edges in the image, no matter how described; B. For each pair of colors on each side of the found edge, determine: 1) Whether trapping should be used, and 2) choose a method of trapping. C. Modify the image accordingly. The present invention differs from this prior art in that there is no explicit finding of edges (no step A). It also differs from step B in that it does not try to decide whether or not trapping should be used; instead, it always applies its modifications to every pixel. Furthermore, there is no selection of a trapping method; its single modification scheme is universally applied. The trapping methods described in the prior art have two common features: The first is that most process images represented in raster form, and seek edges at which to apply their trapping. This places a requirement for extra processing steps in images which constitute primarily structured graphics or which combine structured graphics with contone images. Such images must first be rasterized at the output resolution, and then the appropriate line-scan algorithm applied. They must also employ some edge detection scheme to identify edges where trapping should occur. The second common feature of prior art methods is the necessity to make and apply trapping decisions within the processing based upon pre-established criteria. For raster based processing at high output device resolution, the potential number of pixel-to-pixel color transitions is large due to repetition of transitions corresponding to a single color region border shared by many scan lines. Many rule-based methods exist in the prior art for automatic determination of the particular trap to be specified for a given combination of bounding colors. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,249, a set of logical tests is used in sequence to differentiate between pre-established generic color-pair categories, with a rule applied to each color pair. Such built-in rule systems attempt to replicate the human aesthetic judgment used in manual specification of traps and each can provide results satisfactory to an "expert" user in most cases while failing to do so in other special situations.The specification of a trap at the boundary between two color regions does not in itself eliminate the misregistration of printing plates, but reduces the visual effect of misregistration within the trap zone through proper choice of the trap operation. In the event of plate misregistration involving a color separation for which a trap has been specified, additional "secondary" effects occur. EP 0718793-A2 describes a system for digitally trapping color images on a pixel-by-pixel, whereby for each cyan, yellow, magenta and black color separation, an object-oriented trapping process is carried out. After each object is categorized, the original image is separated into a first copy and a second copy. Edge blurring is performed on the edges of the first copy of the original image; masking of a border region is completed on the second copy of the original image according to a Laplacian filter, a difference recursive filter or other method. A merged image is created by combining the blurred edge first copy of the image with the mask bordered second copy of the original image; the mask is thereafter removed from the merged image. EP 0484890-A2 describes a method of an apparatus for producing an overlapping image area. An overlapping image area is produced on the border between adjacent image areas by processing of image data so as to eliminate a dropout due to registering mismatch. A target image area specified by an operator, is expanded by a predetermined width to produce the overlapping image areas. The color of the overlapping image area is determined based on the color of the target area and the original color of the overlapping image area. Summary of the Invention It is the object of the invention to improve the reduction of image susceptibility to misregistration compared to conventional trapping approaches which need identification of border or edges in an image. This object is achieved by providing a method for making images less susceptible to misregistration according to claim 1 and by providing a system for making images less susceptible for misregistration according to claim 6. The problem of reducing image susceptibility to misregistration is simply resolved by the present invention which offers an alternative to conventional trapping approaches. With the present invention, another way of achieving trapping is presented wherein one does not seek to locate and modify objects and the boundaries, but rather applies a potential modification to every pixel. The modification is such that its effect is greatest on boundary areas and least on regions of uniform color. This approach applies even when there is no distinct boundary between objects such as when image components have "soft" edges, or when edges are blurred as is usually the case with scanned object or objects rendered with antialiased edges. Where a boundary exists, the effect of this method is to create a border along the boundary of the two colors within an image. By implementing the method of the invention this border will contain the color components from both of the adjacent colored areas. Therefore, the effects of misregistration between color components can be reduced when the gap which can occur at the boundary between the two colors is filled with a color component representing both color boundaries. Thus, the white of the paper no longer shows through in this gap. The method takes the following general steps in protecting against misregistration: component-wise maximum color differences are determined for each pixel from neighboring pixels; and a fraction of said difference is then added to said pixel's color value. A difference between a pixel ( pixel a ) value and its set of neighboring pixels ( pixel ith ) is calculated and the value of pixel a is modified, said change effected by adding a fraction of color components Cx, Mx, Yx, Kx to the colorant specification for pixel a (Ca, Ma, Ya, Ka) , wherein the change values relate to the amounts of neighboring colorant that are missing from pixel a . The color difference is added in a fraction t so the modified pixel value will be given by Ca' = Ca + t * Cx, Ma' = Ma + t * Mx, Ya' = Ya + t * Yx, Ka' = Ka + t * Kx, wherein the fraction t will depend upon a property of pixel a such as its luminance of pixel a . The method can be carried out with hardware or in a system comprising a microprocessor programmed to carry out the above steps of the method. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention the value of said fraction is a function of said pixels color value. In a further preferred embodiment of the present invention different functions are used for each color separation. In a further preferred embodiment of the present invention the value of said fraction is a function of said pixels luminance. Brief Description of the Drawings The preferred embodiments and other aspects of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings which are provided for the purpose of describing embodiments of the invention and not for limiting same, in which: Figures 1 and 2 illustrate a simple pixel change where only one color is present, and the changes relationship to luminance and the amount of colorant applied to the pixel. Figure 3 illustrates pixel changes where each step represents a different pixel and all modifications, represented by steps, occur at once with a single colorant (e.g., magenta).. Figure 4 illustrates greater colorant changes to pixels where an additional constant colorant (e.g. cyan) is present. Figure 5 illustrates a change scenario where two colorants/pixels abutt with two colorants (cyan and magenta) and low luminance on each side produces a strong change in colorants. Figure 6 illustrates a block diagram of the system components for the invention. Detailed description of the Invention The need for trapping or other protection from misregistration arises when two colors without significant common colorant amounts abut. Having a border region along a boundary between two such colors, where the border contains all the color components of the adjacent colors, prevents a white gap from showing when the separations are misregistered. Instead, the border just becomes thicker or thinner. Now consider the question of what should the border color be. One answer is that each of its CMYK color components should be the maximum of corresponding component values of the two region colors, but this not always necessary or desirable. Picking the maximum component values can give a dark border color and can draw attention to the boundary. An alternative is to use a value somewhere between the maximum and minimum values for each component. Using an intermediate value can make the boundary less conspicuous and still fill in any gaps with some color darker than white. (One must be a little careful here to also consider the halftoning since a light color in a coarse halftone may appear as a chain of spots within the gap and may draw attention to the gap rather than reduce its visibility.) Referring to Figures 1 and 2, simple pixel changes are illustrated where only one color is present. We will assume for purposes of these examples that the color is magenta and the colorant amount is represented by the vertical portion of the graphical illustrations. The horizontal portion of the graph represents the pixels wherein the graph depicts a drop from one pixel's magenta value to a second pixel's magenta value. As shown in Figure 1, the change in colorant from pixel to pixel occurs at the drop point 1 wherein a strong change is reflected based on the amount of magenta between pixels. Given the amount of change that is a small step downward, a strong change 2 in colorant is added to the second pixel because the still substantial magenta level means the luminance is low on this graph. Now, referring to Figure 2, a much larger drop 3 is presented (large step). While this provides the potential for a large modification, the actual modification 4 is relatively small. This is because the amount of colorant is low at this point and so the luminance is high. Colorant is therefore added based on the step size, and luminance is accounted for (where darker = less change). Referring to Figure 3, multiple pixels are presented with differing changes in step size. This shows the behavior of the technique on a soft or blurred edge. The color will still be magenta for purposes of this example. As seen in the figure, pixel modification 5 occurs on several steps at once based on the colorant and luminance values of each pixel's neighbor. Referring to Figure 4, two colors are now introduced. Cyan 6, for example is a constant color level within the image. Magenta 8 on the other hand is changing. The method modifies the magenta changes 7 according to each pixel's value and the values of its neighbors. Note that bigger changes 7 over the corresponding steps 5 in Figure 3 are reflected because of the presence of cyan 6 as a constant, which reduces the amount of luminance in all pixels for Figure 4. One does not have to choose a single trapping color along the edge. Actually two trapping colors can be used, one on each side of the edge. So, for example if we had a cyan region next to a magenta region, we could draw a border on the cyan side with a little magenta added to the cyan. We could also include a border on the magenta side where a little cyan is added to the magenta. This invention suggests a way to automatically construct these borders. The key is to use a property such as the luminance of a pixel to decide how much of the difference from its neighbors should be added to its color in order to protect against misregistration. In this method, one does not have to explicitly search for edges. Instead, one can simply utilize the color difference between a pixel and its neighbors and apply the method to all pixels. If there is no edge, then this difference will be small and little change will occur. This is different from prior art which has required the identification of edges. Referring to Figure 5, two pixels with a strong mixture of colorants abut each other. For this example magenta 10 is largely represented in the area to the left of the edge 11, but then falls to a lower value on the right of the edge 11. Cyan 9 takes an opposite approach in the graph, transitioning from a lower value on the left to a higher value on the right. As seen by the adjustment (10 , 13) low luminance on each side of the edge 11 provide for strong change in cyan correction 13 on the magenta side and magenta correction 12 on the cyan side of the example image. This method is intended for images that have been rendered to continuous-tone rasters. It does not require knowledge of particular graphic objects or their shapes. It can be used with digital copiers as well as printers. It can be applied when the image is complete and avoids the problems of trapping along artificial boundaries that are later removed. This situation can arise when an object is constructed from several components (e.g. when a sweep is constructed from a series of rectangles.) This method is primarily applicable to graphics and text. It is probably not appropriate to images. It should be used only for continuous-tone objects and should not be used for halftoned objects (e.g. a scanned halftoned image) as it could severely alter the color of a halftoned region. A more detailed description now follows: Given two color specifications Ca Ma Ya Ka and Cb Mb Yb Kb we can determine the amount of colorant in color b that is absent from color a . For the cyan component this is Cba = max( 0, Cb - Ca ). Similarly the other components can be calculated Mba = max( 0, Mb - Ma ), Yba = max ( 0, Yb - Ya ), Kba = max(0, Kb - Ka ). For the difference between the color of a pixel and its set of neighboring pixels we can find the maximum difference from the set of neighbors for each component. Cx = max( C1a, C2a, C3a, C4a, ...) where Cia is the positive difference as calculated above between pixel a and its ith neighbor (Note that an equivalent calculation is to find the maximum of differences for a color separation for all neighbors and then take the maximum of this result with zero.). Similarly we can find Mx, Yx and Kx . We are going to modify or replace the value of pixel a . If pixel a is in a region of uniform color our modifications will leave its value unchanged. If, however, pixel a lies on the boundary between two regions we will change its color to supply trapping to that boundary. We do this by adding a fraction of the color components Cx, Mx, Yx, Kx to the colorant specification for pixel a ( Ca, Ma, Ya, Ka ). I pixel a is in a region of uniform color, then the Cx ,... values will be zero and a will not be changed, but if a lies on a boundary, the difference in color across the boundary will be reflected in the values of Cx ,... These values give the amounts of the neighboring colorants that are missing from a, so supplying them will trap the edge. For a trapping region up to two pixels wide we can use the four immediately adjacent pixels (above, below, right, and left) as a pixel's neighborhood. For wider trapping regions one can use the 8 neighbors, or 12, or 20 or 24. The more distant the pixels examined for color differences, the wider the trapping region. We only add in a fraction t of the color difference so the modified pixel value will be given by Ca' = Ca + t * Cx, Ma' = Ma + t * Mx, Ya' = Ya + t * Yx, Ka' = Ka + t * Kx. This correction is illustrated in the hardware of Figure 6 which is explained more fully below. The fraction t will depend upon the color value of the pixel a . One approach suggested by the trapping rules known in the art is to make the fraction t a function of the luminance of color a . For dark colors the color shifts and additional darkening due to the addition of the x colorant amounts will be hard to see and a white gap will strongly contrast, so a value of t near 1 is appropriate. For light colors, any gap will not be so visible, while the addition of foreign colorant amounts will be apparent, so a value of t closer to 0 is desired. The luminance of color a can be calculated according to the properties of the marking device, but a precise calculation is not necessary; a rough estimate is sufficient. If the red, green and blue components are known, the luminance might be approximated as L = 0.3 * Ra + 0.6 * Ga + 0.1 * Ba . The RGB values can be calculated from models such as the Negebauer equations, but are often approximated from the CMYK values by simpler expression such as Ra = 1 - ( Ca+Ka ), Ga = 1 - (Ma + Ka), Ba = 1 - (Ya +Ka). Different approximation may be used depending on the halftoning scheme employed. A table lookup can be used to find the fractional value t for a given luminance L (I. e. t = T[L] ) so the actual function can be whatever best suits the behavior of the marking device. This function can be determined empirically by printing test patterns with color boundaries for colors with the luminance of interest, and seeing what trapping factor gives the optimum result. We have described the process using CMYK color coordinates, but other coordinates are possible. One need not have converted to ink amounts in order to protect against misregistration. Color fidelity is being sacrificed to trapping and so only rough estimates of colorant amounts should be needed. One could, for example use RGB coordinates by means of the translation given above. One might also consider using different trapping amount functions T[L] for each of the color components. The invention can be carried out with hardware as illustrated in the block diagram of Figure 6. The system has a means to determine the value of the fraction based on neighboring pixel luminance. The system determines pixel luminance which is utilized to determine the optimum neighboring value that should be added to protect against misregistration. [ The left side of figure 6 shows the input of the color-component values for the pixel at location i, j (i.e. Ci,j, Mi,j, Yi,j, Ki,j). The values for neighboring pixels are also input; for example, the cyan components for the neighboring pixels are Ci+1,j, Ci-1,j, Ci,j+1, Ci,j-1. The differences between the pixel value and the values of its neighbors (e.g. Ci+1,j - Ci,j) are determined in input modules 101. Calculation of the maximum value of the four differences and zero is provided within the comparing modules 102 for each input. The original pixel values are also fed to a luminance calculating module 105 that determines an approximate luminance value and feeds this to weight generating module 106. Note that module 106 may be implemented as a simple look-up table. The maximum differences are then scaled by the weight at scale modules 103 for the four colors. This scaled result is then added to the original colorant values at summing modules 104 to give the modified colorant amount for each output. The invention can also be carried out in a microprocessor-based system that is programmed to determined he component-wise maximum color differences for pixels from neighboring pixels and adding a fraction of the difference to the pixels color values. The system is programmable to utilize up to two pixels wide for four immediately adjacent pixels as a pixel neighborhood during trapping involving a region up to two pixels wide. For wider trapping regions a system can be developed based on the teachings herein that can use the 8, 12, 20 or 24 neighbors.

Claims: A method for making images less susceptible to misregistration, providing color component-wise a plurality of respective first differences between a color value of a selected pixel and color values of a plurality of respective neighboring pixels by subtracting the color value of the selected pixel from the color value of the respective neighboring pixel; providing from each first difference a second difference, whereby the second difference is zero, if the first difference is negative and the second difference equals to the first difference, if the first difference is not negative; providing a maximum value by selecting the maximum of the second differences; and adding a fraction t of said maximum value to said color value of the selected pixel, wherein trapping is achieved by applying the method to each pixel. The method of claim 1, wherein the said neighboring pixels are the four pixels immediately adjacent to the selected pixel. The method of claim 1 or 2 wherein the fraction t will depend upon the color value of the selected pixel. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3 wherein for a dark color of the selected pixel the fraction t is near 1, and wherein for a light color of the selected pixel, the fraction t is closer to 0. The method of claim 1 wherein said method is carried out in a microprocessor programmed for trapping images. A system for making images less susceptible to misregistration, means for providing color component-wise a plurality of respective first differences between a color value of a selected pixel and color values of a plurality of respective neighboring pixels by subtracting the color value of the selected pixel from the color value of the respective neighboring pixel; means for providing from each first difference a second difference, whereby the second difference is zero, if the first difference is negative and the second difference equals to the first difference, if the first difference is not negative; means for providing a maximum value, by selecting the maximum of the second differences; means for adding a fraction t of said maximum value to said color value of the selected pixel, wherein said adding a fraction t of said maximum is performed for each pixel to provide trapping. The system of claim 6 wherein said means of said system are comprised of a microprocessor programmed for trapping images.

Inventors: HARRINGTON STEVEN J, HARRINGTON, STEVEN J.
Applicants: XEROX CORP, XEROX CORPORATION
Application year: 1999
Main classification: H04N1
IPC codes: H04N1, B41J2