Method And System Providing Edge Enhanced Image Binarization

An image processing system that produces a binary image from a grayscale image, the system comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory;
• and
• a computer program stored in the memory and executed by the processor, the computer program comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, implement generating a solid fills binary image from the grayscale image, generating an edge enhanced binary image from the grayscale image, and combining the solid fills binary image and the edge enhanced binary image to produce a composite binary image.

A scanning system comprising:

• a scanner that scans an image source to produce a grayscale image;
• and
• an image processor that processes the grayscale image, the image processor comprising a computer program having instructions that, when executed, implement generating a solid fills binary image from the grayscale image, generating an edge enhanced binary image from the grayscale image, combining the solid fills binary image and the edge enhanced binary image to produce a composite binary image, and speckle noise reduction filtering of the composite binary image,
• wherein combining the generated binary images comprises performing a pixel-by-pixel logical OR of pixels in the solid fills binary image and corresponding pixels in the edge enhanced binary image.