System and Method of Halftone Printing of Image Spot Colors Using Ranked Ordered Pairing of Colorants and Halftone Screens
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorsEdul N. Dalal, Robert P. Loce
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Abstract
Systems and methods of halftoning an image for extended-colorant printing image spot colors are provided which perform a quality ranking of a plurality of periodic halftone screens to be used in halftoning the image and an objectionability ranking of the colorants used to produce the one or more image spot colors. Halftone screen-to-colorant assignments are then made using a ranked ordered pairing of the ranked screens and ranked colorants. The image is halftoned using these assignments and the results can be printed or saved for future printing. Pixel tags can be used to identify the ranked ordered halftone screen-to-colorant assignments.
Claims20
A method of halftoning an image by an image processor for extended-colorant printing comprising:
- performing a quality ranking of a plurality of periodic halftone screens within a given screen set to be used for halftoning an image spot color, giving the screen which generates the least amount of undesirable effects the highest quality ranking and the screen which generates the largest amount of undesirable effects the lowest quality ranking;
- ranking the objectionability of the colorants used to produce the image spot color for one or more objectionability factors relating to image quality defects;
- and
- creating halftone screen-to-colorant assignments using ranked ordered pairing of the ranked screens and ranked colorants, pairing the screen having the highest quality ranking with the colorant having the highest objectionability, pairing the screen having the next highest quality ranking with the colorant having the next highest objectionability, and continuing the pairing in order until the screen having the lowest quality ranking is paired with the colorant having the lowest objectionability.
An image processing system for halftoning an image comprising:
- one or more processors forming an image processor, the image processor performs a quality ranking of a plurality of periodic halftone screens within a given screen set to be used for halftoning an image spot color giving the screen which generates the least amount of undesirable affects the highest quality ranking and the screen which generates the largest amount of undesirable affects the lowest quality ranking, ranks the objectionability of the colorants used to produce the image spot color for one or more objectionability factors relating to image quality defects, and creates halftone screen-to-colorant assignments using ranked ordered pairing of the ranked screens and ranked colorants, pairing the screen having the highest quality ranking with the colorant having the highest objectionability, pairing the screen having the next highest quality ranking with the colorant having the next highest objectionability, and continues the pairing in order until the screen having the lowest quality ranking is paired with the colorant having the lowest objectionability.
A digital printer for printing images having one or more image spot colors using extended colorant sets comprising:
- one or more processors forming an image processor, the image processor performing a quality ranking of a plurality of periodic halftone screens within a given screen set to be used for halftoning an image spot color giving the screen which generates the least amount of undesirable affects the highest quality ranking and the screen which generates the largest amount of undesirable affects the lowest quality ranking, ranking the objectionability of the colorants used to produce the image spot color for one or more objectionability factors relating to image quality defects, and creating halftone screen-to-colorant assignments using ranked ordered pairing of the ranked screens and ranked colorants, pairing the screen having the highest quality ranking with the colorant having the highest objectionability, pairing the screen having the next highest quality ranking with the colorant having the next highest objectionability, and continuing the pairing in order until the screen having the lowest quality ranking is paired with the colorant having the lowest objectionability, and halftoning the image applying the halftone screens to their respective paired colorants;
- and
- a print engine printing the halftoned image using at least one of an extended gamut colorant set including more than four colorants and a colorant set including phototone colorants.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.