Patent ID: 6995866

Claim:
A method for background adjustment, the method comprising: estimating a background lightness level in an original image; converting pixels in the original image to a luminance-chrominance color space, wherein pixels having lightness levels substantially equal to the background lightness level are mapped as background pixels such that their lightness values are set substantially equal to a value corresponding to white; comparing chroma values for the background pixels to at least one threshold; adjusting lightness levels for any background pixels having chroma values above a first threshold to a new lightness level indicating that color of that pixel is to be preserved, producing lightness adjusted pixels; removing chroma from any background pixels having chroma values below a second threshold indicating that the color of that pixel should be removed, producing color adjusted pixels; and converting to a color space of an output device, wherein conversion is performed on all pixels including any lightness adjusted pixels and color-adjusted pixels.