Patent Document ID: 7853074
Application ID: 11678688
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for removing unwanted form color content from scanned image data for a document, the method comprising: a) obtaining the scanned document image data in a color data format; b) segmenting the image data into two or more tiles; c) characterizing each tile by its color content with the steps of: (i) generating a red histogram for red color values within the tile; (ii) generating a green histogram for green color values within the tile; (iii) generating a blue histogram for blue color values within the tile; (iv) determining, according to the red, green, and blue histogram distributions, whether the tile contains predominantly neutral background content, or predominantly form color content, or a combination of background and color content; d) identifying a background color according to tiles having predominantly neutral background content; e) identifying at least one form color according to tiles having predominantly form color content; and f) selectively transforming pixels having the at least one form color toward the background color.