Patent ID: 8655059

Claim:
A processor-implemented method for processing image data using an image processing apparatus, the image processing apparatus comprising at least one processor for processing documents containing image data comprising a plurality of pixels, the method comprising the following acts implemented by the at least one processor: receiving image data of a document comprising a plurality of pixels including non-neutral pixels; determining pixel classifications of the non-neutral pixels in the image data by determining a degree of neutrality of the non-neutral pixels and placing each non-neutral pixel into a corresponding class; determining a count of the pixels for each class of the determined pixel classifications; classifying the image data of the document as a whole into a category based on the determination pixel classifications and the determined counts for each pixel classification; determining a count of CMYK data in device dependent color space for outputting the image data, and determining a billing structure for the image data based on combining the determined count of the CMYK data in device dependent color space along with the category from the classification of image data in the luminance-chroma based color space, wherein the classifying of the image data of the document as a whole into the category is based on luminance-chroma based color space.