JPS589136A - Image observing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily discriminate a frame having a color shift, by displaying a series of frames on the same display. CONSTITUTION:Each frame of a series of films is scanned and read, and in accordance with image information which has executed both negative/positive conversion by an inverting circuit, and a color correction by an integration neutral system, frames F1-F12 are displayed on the same cathode-ray tube. In case when a frame whose color tone is improper has been detected, the extent of a color correction is indicated manually, and a corrected result is confirmed through the surface of the cathode-ray tube. A color correction inicating value is stored in each frame, and when printing, the color correction is executed in accordance with its value. Since a lot of frames can be compared with each other, it does not occur that a color shift cannot be decided due to the fact that eyes have been accustomed to display of the cathode-ray tube.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an image observation apparatus, and more particularly to an image observation apparatus used for artificially diagnosing the conditions for determining the printing level for printing images taken on photographic film.

First, I will explain printing from color negative film.

In general, a color negative film screen has a distribution of brightness and darkness, and each part of the screen has a different density of blue, green, and red, and each negative film does not necessarily have an appropriate exposure amount. It is not what is being photographed, but the exposure must be adjusted appropriately during printing.

However, in most cases, by controlling the amount of transmitted light of the three color components of blue, green, and red over the entire screen area,
I try to create prints with good color balance and printing. This is based on the empirical rule that in a normal shooting scene, the average reflectance of the three colors integrated over the entire scene is approximately constant. Those skilled in the art refer to this as the integral neutral method. In other words, when a neutral general subject is photographed using cuff negative film, the average transmission density depends on overexposure, underexposure, the light quality of the light source at the time of photography, the sensitivity of the blue, green, and red photosensitive dyes on the color negative film, and the presence or absence of a mask. However, these changes are automatically controlled by keeping the printing exposure amounts of blue, green, and red constant during printing.

On the other hand, changes in the density of the three colors of a color negative film caused by a difference in the color distribution of the object change the areal component ratio of the three colors of the object.
Conventionally implemented control methods such as those described above do not provide automatic control.

Also, if the luminance composition is extremely biased compared to the normal luminance distribution, such as when there are an extremely large number of high-luminance areas or many low-luminance areas compared to a normal scene, Changes in the density of a negative film that occur when a certain area is made up of shadows or highlights are due to area changes in the density of the subject, so it can be determined only by the average transmitted density. This cannot be corrected by conventional methods of controlling the printing exposure amount. Furthermore, if the main subject forms a shadow part or an extreme highlight part compared to the surrounding subjects, the composition of the scene will be significantly different from the printer's set conditions and cannot be corrected.

Those skilled in the art refer to a photograph of a lane in which a print with an unsatisfactory color balance is produced as a 7th area, and a 7th area as a photograph of a scene in which a print with an unsatisfactory degree of printing is produced. The appearance of these varies depending on the time, but color feria is around 5%, and density 7 area is around 5%.
It is said to be 40%. For automatic correction of color feria, a method such as a low-ward correction method has been adopted and put into practical use.For automatic correction of density 7 areas, the center is subdivided and the highest density is selected as the density representing the main body. , methods of determining the amount of correction as a function of surrounding density, and methods of positionally weighting and determining the amount of printing density have been proposed.Currently, in the printing process using these probabilistic methods, the amount of correction is being integrated. In the printing method, prints with 30 to 40% defects are produced, and in the automatic negative judgment method, in which one negative is divided into smaller parts and the printing degree is determined using the density, prints with 5 to 10 defects are produced. Furthermore, in addition to other printing defects, there are also prints that cannot be shipped due to image defects such as aerial photography, blurring, and out-of-focus prints.If prints with 0 image defects are not discovered at the time of shipping and shipped, there will be a loss of photographic paper. Normally, defective prints are reprinted and shipped after being reprinted, although this is only a loss. Reprinting involves discovering a defective pudding, finding the original image for it, reprinting it, and inserting it into the previous print group after processing.If there is one defective pudding, the order cannot be shipped. One process is greatly disrupted. Furthermore, since the reprinting process is as described above, it requires a huge amount of time and manpower compared to the first printing process.

For this reason, efforts have been made to eliminate defective prints. The most common method is to place a skilled technician in the printer (exposure department) and have them observe the negative image to create defective prints.The printing exposure amount is varied for the negative. There is. For example, the subject (
For images of scenes with dark surroundings (people, etc.), the integral neutral method will produce a pale print due to the reasons mentioned above. Please make an educated decision based on your experience. Also, for scenes where the color changes in terms of area, such as a scene with a red carpet, the integral neutral method makes the entire area neutral, so the red carpet does not appear red.◎For this, the red carpet・Prints are created by changing the balance of green and blue printing light intensity based on experience.

For this reason, normal printers are equipped with keys that have a uniform exposure change range of 20 to 10%, and the operator has to experience which key to select for the original image to create a good print, and based on that experience, Key selection is being performed.

When skilled technicians become most skilled, they can reduce the number of defective prints to - As a means to effectively utilize these skilled technicians, it is possible to have a negative judgment function independent of the printer, and use the negative judgment results to drive the printer unattended. - have also been put into practical use. Furthermore, in order to minimize the print loss caused by the above-mentioned printing density determination based on the scan density, a device has been devised to have the operator make a decision in advance in advance of the printer. These systems require skilled personnel on the premise of allowing people to make judgments and predicting the results of automatic control in printers.

On the other hand, an exposure amount determining device using video has also been put into practical use. A typical example of this is to scan the negative surface using a flying lens scanner as a light source, photoelectrically detect drastic changes corresponding to the negative density, and invert this photoelectric signal to perform OR.
This is to reproduce a positive image on τ. The observer is O
While looking at the RT Meji Ryorun, if the image is dark overall, it will be rejected.) Change the amount of light in the middle of the screen and adjust the light to reproduce a visually pleasing image. This light intensity value is replaced with the light intensity value at the time of printing. Both color and white images are possible using the same principle. This is used to determine the printing of professional prints (large prints), but each frame must be observed independently - OR'! '@Rin's color matching and brightness adjustment is a result of the human eye adapting to GILT, resulting in a wide range of adjustment, and it takes skill to match the adjusted level with the printing exposure amount. I need it. Also, since it takes a lot of time to judge each frame one by one, it is not adopted in the general color printing process.

The present invention aims to eliminate these drawbacks and provide an image observation device that does not require a skilled person to determine the printing. An observation means that makes it possible to measure the number ** at different positions C@ on one display, a means for specifying one we artificially from the image of the front cover, and a means for specifying the specified we. This is achieved by the LII behavior observation device, which is characterized by having a storage means for storing information regarding the LII behavior.

A first feature of the present invention is the ability to display multiple images on one display. In other words, instead of observing each image taken one frame at a time during film sales, by observing many images on one display, u) 1:1 frame-by-frame observation is possible. The eye adaptation caused by this can be reduced by comparing and observing a large number of images, and the observer can easily observe the image of the defective surface from among the large number of images.

(2) As mentioned above, the probability of creating a defective pudding is I~40% (integral neutral method), and is less than Lt 10 S in a printer using scan density.

Instantly finding this out of many images is one frame at a time.
It is easier to observe the frames, and the work is easy because only the defective frames need to be dealt with.

A second feature of the present invention is to present a means for specifying an observed defect image from a large number of displayed images and visual judgment information of the image, and further to associate the defect images and visual judgment information and store them. It's about doing.

The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. Figure 1 shows a general photographic film, which is photographed in a single row of strips. Here, 1P1 to 112 are the image numbers on the film arbitrarily assigned from the leading edge. In photographic printing, a large number of films are usually connected one after another with adhesive tape and processed as a single roll. In the figure, films 1 and 2 are connected with adhesive tape 3.

FIG. 2 shows that the above image has been reproduced on a 12:F display. An observer observes a group of images displayed in this manner.

FIG. 83 shows one embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, Shu is a film strip on which images such as the one shown in 81N are continuously formed. 4 scans and photographs images that continuously come into the field of view with a video camera, and transmits a video signal through a two-image processing circuit B. In the image reproduction circuit 7, the image reproduction level is set to conditions determined by parameters such as negative/positive inversion and the amount of transmitted light from the detector 4.

For example, if the amount of transmitted light of detector n is 11 to 112 for each negative
By controlling the ratio to a constant value, you can complete a reproduction system using the integral neutral method, and by inputting printing information based on density scanning for each image, you can create a print reproduction system using that system. can be observed.

Naturally, it is also possible to set the image reproduction level using the image video signal itself. That is, if the video signal is divided into the IN screen, a signal proportional to the amount of transmitted light of the photoelectric detector 4 is obtained, and the burn-in information is calculated by density scanning based on the density of each part (position ff1) of the screen, and the reproduction system is determined. and can be observed.

The nail is an external information input/output circuit that is connected to an external detector, a manual information input section (9), an external memory, and a light pen (4), and controls the playback level, such as the average light for each image. Give the blasphemous signal to both image process circuit schools. Further, the signals processed by the image processing circuit n are subjected to M/D conversion (24) and stored in the memory circuit 2. This memory circuit is also connected together with the external information input/output circuit and becomes clogged, causing the second W
It is stored in a predefined memory address to be displayed as J.

In this way, the images that sequentially enter the camera field of view are stored in the memory circuit section, and the number of images (in this case, 121) is stored in the memory circuit section.
Image ii) Once stored, it is transferred to the auxiliary memory 3'.

The output of □ from the auxiliary imager is scanned over the entire surface of the L CRT display, and an image can be observed on the W) lix as shown in Figure 2. The light pen is used to specify the image on the ORT display and is an external information input/output circuit τ.
The image position specified by can be automatically determined. With respect to the determined iii*, visual information, that is, image defect images such as blurring and blurring, and defect information such as shading, is presented using the pm button (material), and this is stored in the storage device 3.

Based on this stored information, defective images are not printed or printing control is changed for both dark and dark defective images, but since this control method is outside the scope of the present invention, a detailed explanation will be omitted here.

In this embodiment, a single image roll is described, but several rolls can be photographed by multiple video cameras and viewed on the same display.

Such an application is suitable for centralized control of prints. As mentioned above, the exposure determination method based on scanning density produces defective prints of Wk%, but the probability of producing such defective prints is extremely low depending on the transmission density of the negative. It is concentrated in cases where the subject contrast is extremely high or low, and cases where the balance is greatly distorted in the amount of blue, green, and red transmitted light of the negative. These groups are from Canada to 3
This is a 0% photographic negative group. The above characteristics can be easily characterized by simple photometric techniques. In other words, it is possible to measure the transmitted density of the negative and the high and low densities of the screen and select a group of images with a high probability of producing a defective pudding. It is.

By taking such measures, it is possible to display a group of negatives that are characterized as having a high probability of producing defective prints without displaying the entire image, and it is possible to reduce human judgment, especially for intensive observation. This is desirable. In general negative observation, negative images are observed under a fixed amount of light (tungsten lamps or warning lights), but it takes great skill to search for defective prints on printers that control the amount of transmitted light. By varying the amount of light independently and keeping the amount of transmitted light constant, the results can be observed very easily, and it can be determined without any skill whether the resulting print is too dark or too light. Also, printing decisions based on scan density are more important! Pre-judgment is impossible without knowing the theory of cone-based judgment, but with the present invention, the reproduction level of the image is changed depending on the amount of print determined by the scan density, and the image is observed. Even if you do not know the print determination formula, you can easily find defective images and accurately indicate whether the image is too dark or too light.

In principle, an image display can be observed by an observer whether it is a positive image or a single image, but it is easier for unskilled people to observe if a positive image is displayed. Furthermore, when color is used as an image display, color balance and shading can be easily estimated.

Generally, it takes a very long time to observe the color balance state on a display, and it takes time for an inexperienced worker to judge it. It is very easy to automatically control the balance, and there are means known to those skilled in the art such as a lower word correction.

However, if changes in color balance that are not dependent on the shooting scene, such as artificial light, are automatically controlled by the transmitted light amount ratio, 1. Then, only the brightness judgment is performed using C.
If image shading) Let a person judge.

In this way, the viewer can easily observe the image independently of the color balance. The color balance information is displayed in such a way that the characteristics of artificial light are surrounded by a frame along with the image, which is based on the transmission density of Sφ red. Artificial light and dark scenes are especially scenes with a lot of yellow area for tungsten, and scenes with a lot of wood edges for warning lights. In other words, tungsten has high energy in the red part (warning lights have high energy in the green part, which can be easily characterized from the ratio of blue, green, and red light amounts.

Also, in the scene, objects that reflect energy distribution, such as tungsten light sources, are extremely rare, but there are many reflective objects equivalent to warning lights. It is extremely easy to observe pass/fail from an image in which the brightness of what is characterized as artificial light in such a scene is reproduced. In other words, the artificial light is indoors and there is no subject with constant brightness over a large area.
Or, based on common sense observations such as the fact that the scene does not include trees or grass, you can select whether the color is acceptable or not, based on the blue, green, and red parts of the amount of transmitted light.

In this way, the reproduction power allows the viewer to observe the brightness again, only its shading, and displays an image that is selectively characterized from the amount of light of blue and IiIφred together with the image. Print defects can be observed - a very useful application. Also, although we have explained the method of presenting grayscale information as a judgment value,
An example of its application is a means for obtaining a signal for changing the playback level, designating an independent image on the display, independently changing the playback level, and storing the visually satisfying playback level. be.

In addition, although we have explained that visual information is used to characterize the entire image, such as imperfections and defects such as shading of the image, the next application example of the present invention is to have the observer present the position of the subject. There is a way.

In FIG. 3, the position of the subject is automatically detected by presenting the subject position using the printer 4, and when the numerical value is calculated and this is provided to the scan density printer, the degree of printing can be determined using this subject density as information. Judgment based on scan density is based on the probability that the subject is judged as a high-brightness area, so there may be errors such as backlighting or errors due to the absence of the subject in the center.
Although errors may occur, printing conditions can be determined with high accuracy by notifying the subject position.

The features of the present invention including its application examples have been described above, but the present invention has the following features:
By displaying a large number of images on one display, it is possible to reduce the viewer's eye adaptation and to keep the eyeball movement within an appropriate range, thereby reducing the viewer's fatigue. And while the observer can improve observation accuracy by making comparative observations, here 1! By using an image observation device equipped with a means for specifying a defective image from among the detected 11Wk images and a storage means for storing information related to the defect image in correspondence with each other, it is possible to eliminate defective prints in photographic prints. You can eliminate the hassle of repairs, etc. Although the present invention can be applied to black and white printing, it is extremely effective for photographic printers.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 shows a spliced strip of photographic film. 3rd w! J shows a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. (9)...Film strip 4...Image tube n...Optical detector 23-...Image processing circuit required...Mom /D conversion 25-
...Memo 9 circuits...ORτ display! ...External information input/output circuit Z...Storage device 9...Light pen (fund)...Key button agent Yoshimi Kuwahara

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] (1) Observation means that allows a plurality of images to be observed at different positions on one display, and image specification means that artificially specifies one image from the @ images of the Lamentation. An image observation device comprising: storage means for storing information regarding the designated image. (2) The image observation device according to claim 1, further comprising: presentation means for presenting visual judgment information of a designated image, and storage means for storing the presented information. (3) Have a means to independently change the shading and/or color balance of the designated image in a continuous or gradual manner, and add 1 to 11 to the reproduction level value of the image as a visual image. A claim characterized in that it has a storage means for storing! $111 Image observation device for item 18 (4) The image observation device according to claim i11, characterized in that the reproduction level of II number of images can be changed independently. 3. The image observation device according to claim 1, wherein consecutive images taken on a photographic film are reproduced on a vertical and horizontal matrix on a single display. (6) A double-image observation device according to claim 1, characterized in that images from different photographic films are reproduced on the same display (7) Both negative images are inverted and observed as a positive image. 2. The image observation device according to claim 1, further comprising an inversion circuit. (8) The image observation device according to claim 1, wherein defective images such as II@'s shading and/or color balance and/or pre-missing images are presented as visual judgment information. ψ)j:I)-A claim characterized in that in a negative ms, a mark indicating the characteristic is written together with the image on the display for an image characterized by its blue, green, and red color balance. The image observation device according to item 1.