JP2006262043A - Image processor and image processing method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To efficiently create a printer profile suitable for image forming medium types, the purpose of use, the quantity of color materials used by changing a color constitution of color patches in a color chart in accordance with the purpose of use, the quantity of color materials used together with the image forming medium types of a printer. <P>SOLUTION: The image processor comprises: a color chart creating means for creating the color chart; and a printer profile creating means for creating the printer profile based on data measured by a measuring instrument, the color constituted stored in a data part and data of a color patch layout. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a color image processing method for generating a printer profile and a color image processing apparatus.

  In general, when outputting an image displayed on a monitor from a printer, it is difficult to make the two colors correspond to each other because the display spaces of the two are different. Therefore, color conversion and color correction image processing is performed so that the display image on the monitor and the appearance of the print image on the printer are close to each other. At this time, even if the image signal of the monitor and the color materials (toner, ink) of the printer are the same, if the type of paper used for printer output (hereinafter referred to as “image forming medium type”) is different, the image forming medium Since the color reproduction range (gamut) for each species is different, unnatural color correction occurs when the same image processing is performed.

  In order to solve the problem, means for determining characteristics of an arbitrary image forming medium type based on information of one image forming medium serving as a reference using measured values of a color chart, and one printer serving as a reference There is known an image processing apparatus that creates a printer profile having means for calculating a lattice point value of a printer profile of an arbitrary image forming medium type from lattice point values constituting the profile (see Patent Document 1).

  However, in general, depending on not only the type of paper (e.g., plain paper, glossy paper, etc.) but also the usage of the printer (e.g., photographic image, document image, specific color) and the amount of color material used, Since it is necessary to create a printer profile, it is desirable to use a color chart in which colors are arranged efficiently according to the intended use of the printer and the amount of color material used.

Accordingly, the present invention changes the color composition of the color patch in the color chart according to the usage and the amount of color material used together with the image forming medium type of the printer. The object is to efficiently create a printer profile suitable for the amount of color material used.
JP 2004-229116 A

In order to achieve the above object, the invention described in claim 1 is to create the printer profile in an image processing apparatus for creating a printer profile, comprising a measuring device for measuring a color chart and a data section for storing data. According to the conditions, color chart data is determined by determining color configuration data of the color patch, and color chart creation means for creating a color chart by storing the data of the color configuration and the color patch placement in the data portion; And a printer profile creating means for creating a printer profile based on the data measured by the measuring device, the data of the color configuration and the color patch arrangement stored in the data section.
The invention described in claim 2 is characterized in that the color chart creating means creates a printer profile according to the type of image forming medium, the intended use of the printer, and the amount of color material used.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, the color chart creation means sets the data of the saturation part selected at the time of selecting the usage application of the printer to the data of the saturation part not selected at the time of selection of the usage application. The data of the saturation part is acquired so as to increase, and the color composition data of the color patch is determined.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the color chart creating means acquires from data having a large quantization error when the colorimetric values are vector-quantized, and the total amount of color materials is the largest in the code of the corresponding data. The least amount of data and the most amount of data are acquired, and the color configuration data of the color patch is determined.
In order to achieve the above object, according to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the image processing method for creating a printer profile, a step of selecting a condition for creating the printer profile, and color composition data of a color patch are determined to determine color. Create a printer profile based on the process of patch arrangement, the process of creating the color chart by saving the color configuration and color patch arrangement data, and the measurement data and the stored color composition and color patch arrangement data And a step of performing.
The invention described in claim 6 is characterized in that the step of selecting the condition selects the type of image forming medium, the intended use of the printer, and the amount of color material used.

  According to the present invention, a printer profile corresponding to various conditions is created based on the input information of the type of image forming medium, the intended use of the printer, and the usage amount of the color material, so the printer profile can be created efficiently. it can. In addition, the developed color displayed on the monitor and the developed color of the printer are substantially corresponding colors.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the image processing apparatus according to the present embodiment. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a storage format of data in the data part.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, an image processing apparatus 1 includes a server 2 that performs arithmetic processing, a monitor 4 that performs various displays, a measuring instrument 5 for side-coloring a color patch on a color chart, and a client that interfaces with a printer 6. (PC etc.) 3 The server 2 includes a CPU 7, a calculation unit 8, a data unit 9, and a data processing unit 10, and the client 3 includes a CPU 11 and a printer driver 12. The printer driver 12 receives input color data (for example, data expressed in the RGB color system) from an application on the image processing apparatus 1, and is interpreted by the printer 6 based on the printer profile generated by the image processing apparatus 1. Data is converted into a possible format and sent to the printer 6.

  The CPUs of the server 2 and the client 3 are each provided with a ROM and a RAM, and perform necessary control by executing a program stored in the ROM while using the RAM as a work area. An image forming apparatus is formed by the image processing apparatus 1 and the printer 6. The printer 6 itself may be any printer having a known image forming function such as an electrophotographic system, an ink jet system, or a thermal transfer system. Since these printers themselves are not characteristic, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

  A flowchart showing the processing procedure of the image processing apparatus according to the present embodiment in FIG. 2 will be described. The usage of the printer profile to be created, the type of image forming medium, and the amount of color material used are selected from a dialog on the display screen of the client 3. In usage, for example, when outputting a photographic image, a low / medium saturation portion is selected, and when outputting a graph or character image, a high saturation portion is selected. For the image forming medium type, for example, glossy paper is selected when outputting a photographic image, and plain paper is selected when outputting a graph or character image (S1).

  After selecting the intended use and the type of image forming medium, the color configuration of the color patch is determined. The configuration value of the low / medium saturation portion or the high saturation portion for each image forming medium type is acquired from the data portion 9 (S2). In FIG. 2, the use structure is configured as an upper layer of the image forming medium type in FIG. 2, but the data structure may be changed according to the number and capacity of data.

  After the color configuration data is determined, the color patches are arranged in the color chart. Color patch placement is based on errors in vector quantization and usage, but the vector is selected so that the saturation data selected at the time of usage selection is placed at the center of the color chart. Processing is performed so that the one with a large quantization error is arranged in the center of the color chart.

  Further, the color patch arrangement data is determined with priority given to the use application and the image forming medium type result over the vector quantization error (S3). After determining the color patch arrangement data, the color patch arrangement and color configuration data are stored in the buffer of the data section 9. After the arrangement process is completed, a color chart is created (S4), and the color chart is output from the printer for which the printer profile is created. Note that the processing procedure from S1 to S4 is referred to as color chart creation means.

  Thereafter, the output color chart is measured by the measuring instrument 5 (S5), and the measurement result data is stored. The data is saved by acquiring the color patch arrangement and color composition data from the buffer of the data unit 9, capturing the relationship with the data of the measurement result, performing vector quantization by the data processing unit 10, The measurement result data is stored (S6). After storing the data, a process for creating a printer profile using the measurement result is performed (S7). The processing procedure from S5 to S7 is referred to as profile creation means.

  A data storage format in the data section 9 of FIG. 3 will be described. The measurement data is held in a format in which a vector obtained by connecting measurement values (for example, Lab), a sign of a representative vector having the closest distance, and an error between the measurement value vector and the representative vector are associated with each other. The representative vector is stored in the data section 9 in advance when the system is constructed. When only the low saturation part or the high saturation part is used for each type of image forming medium, only the number of color patches that can be arranged in the color chart is used. prepare.

  The representative vector is determined so as to divide the target color space (for example, Lab) evenly, but may be non-linearly divided according to the characteristics of the printer. When determining the code for the measurement data, the data processing unit 10 calculates the distance from all the representative vectors, and applies the code of the representative vector with the shortest distance. At the same time, the past used amounts of used color materials (for example, cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) for each code are stored as a list, and the data is sorted according to the used amount of color materials at the time of configuration.

  When determining the color patch arrangement data of the color chart creating means described above (S3), the colorimetric value is obtained from data with a large quantization error when vector quantization is performed, and the color of the code of the corresponding data is obtained. Get the data with the least amount of material and the most data. Further, the data of the saturation part is acquired so that the data of the saturation part selected at the time of selecting the usage is larger than the data of the saturation part not selected at the time of selecting the usage (for example, 2 1 ratio) color composition data is determined.

  The above-described image processing apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention has the following effects. Since the printer profile corresponding to various conditions is created based on the input information of the condition of the type of image forming medium, the usage of the printer, and the usage amount of the color material, the printer profile can be created efficiently.

  In determining the color composition data of the color patch, the data of the saturation part is acquired so that it is larger than the data of the saturation part not selected at the time of selecting the usage, and the data sign Since the data with the smallest total amount of color material and the data with the largest amount are obtained, the developed color displayed on the monitor and the developed color of the printer are almost the corresponding colors.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a flowchart which shows the process sequence of the image processing apparatus which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the preservation | save format of the data in a data part.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Image processing apparatus, 2 ... Server, 3 ... Client (PC etc.), 4 ... Monitor, 5 ... Measuring instrument, 6 ... Printer, 7 ... CPU, 8 ... arithmetic unit, 9 ... data part, 10 ... data processing part.

Claims (6)

In an image processing apparatus for creating a printer profile, comprising a measuring device for measuring a color chart and a data section for storing data,
According to the conditions for creating the printer profile, the color configuration data of the color patch is determined and the color patch is arranged, and the data of the color configuration and the color patch arrangement is stored in the data section to create a color chart. Color chart creation means;
An image processing apparatus comprising: a printer profile creating unit configured to create a printer profile based on data measured by the measuring device, color configuration and color patch arrangement data stored in the data unit. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1.
The color chart creating means creates a printer profile according to the type of image forming medium, the intended use of the printer, and the amount of color material used. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2,
The color chart creating means includes data in the saturation part so that the data in the saturation part selected when selecting the intended use of the printer is larger than the data in the saturation part not selected when selecting the intended use. And determining the color composition data of the color patch. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2,
The color chart creation means obtains from data with a large quantization error when the colorimetric values are vector-quantized, and obtains the data with the least amount of color material and the most data in the code of the corresponding data. An image processing apparatus for determining color configuration data of the color patch. In an image processing method for creating a printer profile,
Selecting conditions for creating the printer profile;
Determining the color composition data of the color patch and arranging the color patch;
Storing the color configuration and color patch arrangement data to create a color chart;
And a step of creating a printer profile based on the measurement data and the stored color configuration and color patch arrangement data. The image processing method according to claim 5,
The step of selecting the conditions includes selecting the type of image forming medium, the intended use of the printer, and the amount of color material used.

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