Abstract: An image processing apparatus configured to control a fixing temperature of a fixing device that fixes a formed image includes a fixing temperature control unit configured to control, based on a change amount between a toner amount of an N-th page, where N is a natural number, and a toner amount of an (N+1)th page in a print job having a plurality of pages, a fixing temperature for the (N+1)th page, and a toner amount control unit configured to control the toner amount of the (N+1)th page to be less than or equal to a toner amount which can be fixed at the fixing temperature controlled by the fixing temperature control unit.

Abstract: To provide a gamut mapping method, the description of a correspondence relationship of which is more directly than that of a conventional method, the gamut mapping method being capable of performing fine control. A method of compressing a color reproduction range includes a step of allocating a vector representing a direction in which a color value on a grid point should shift in a uniform color space, to each grid point on the uniform color space and a step of finding a direction of shift for an input color value on the uniform color space based on the vector and mapping the input color value to a color reproduction range of an output device.

Abstract: An image processing apparatus extracts an area for each color from an illustration area, specifies an area that is in contact with the boundary of the illustration area, extracts a color around the illustration area, determines whether or not the extracted color around the illustration area is the same as the color of the specified area, and processes vector data that represents an area that has been determined as having the same color.

Abstract: In profile adjustment processing, if colorimetric conditions are different from those of when the profile is created, notification is performed to enable the profile adjustment with a high accuracy. According to the present invention, there is provided a method for processing a profile including acquiring a colorimetric value by measuring a color of a patch printed by an image forming apparatus based on patch data, performing a calculation for creating a profile based on the colorimetric value, storing the profile created by the calculation in association with information about a condition of the colorimetric measurement, comparing, when the profile is adjusted, the colorimetric condition corresponding to the stored profile with a colorimetric condition used when the color of the patch is measured to adjust the profile, and notifying a user if the comparison determines that the colorimetric conditions do not coincide with each other.

Abstract: A multi-value code image generation part generates a multi-value code image by assigning first code information, which is obtained by encoding a dot pattern in a specific area, to each growth core. A multi-value code image affine transformation part performs affine transformation on the multi-value code image. A multi-value code image assignment part assigns second code information to each of the growth cores before the affine transformation according to the first code information of at least one growth core after the affine transformation, which growth core neighbors close to the growth core before the affine transformation. A dot pattern development part develops the dot pattern for the specific area at each of the growth cores before the affine transformation according to the second code information.

Abstract: Each object in input image data is separated into an area by an image area separation unit. An area determined to be a character area based on the image area separation processing is smoothened by an MTF correction unit. The resulting data is then binarized by a binarizing unit. The binarized data is split according to types of objects, and characters and line drawings are vectorized and stored in a storage unit. Alternatively, the characters and line drawings are printed out.

Abstract: There are cases in which an effective search index cannot be provided to an image data only by extracting character codes from a character object in PDL data. An image processing apparatus of the present invention obtains image data by rendering PDL data, and extracts a character object from the image data. The image processing apparatus performs character recognition processing on the extracted character object to obtain character code information, and provides metadata including the character code information to the image data.

Abstract: To provide a gamut mapping method, the description of a correspondence relationship of which is more directly than that of a conventional method, the gamut mapping method being capable of performing fine control. A method of compressing a color reproduction range includes a step of allocating a vector representing a direction in which a color value on a grid point should shift in a uniform color space, to each grid point on the uniform color space and a step of finding a direction of shift for an input color value on the uniform color space based on the vector and mapping the input color value to a color reproduction range of an output device.

Abstract: An input image is segmented into regions based on attributes of the input image. It is determined whether each segmented region is an illustration region. When it is determined that the segmented region is an illustration region, the color of the determined illustration region is compared with that of a region around the illustration region. When these colors coincide with each other as a result of the comparison, attribute information of the illustration region is changed to that of the region around the illustration region. Print data is generated based on the changed attribute information.

Abstract: In a system that performs object division of a manuscript and adds metadata, a method is provided which can edit the metadata by an intuitive operation when no appropriate metadata is added or when it is desired that the metadata be increased by adding. An image processing device, which divides an manuscript acquired through an input component into a plurality of objects and adds the metadata, has a user interface for editing the metadata of the objects, and switches, after selecting first and second objects, a retouching method of the metadata in accordance with the contents of the respective metadata of the first object and second object.

Abstract: A printing system adapted to be able to successively process a plurality of jobs by a printing apparatus has a designation unit adapted to designate, from the plurality of jobs, a job that processing by the printing apparatus is to be suspended; and a controller adapted to control the printing apparatus to suspend the processing of the job designated by the designation unit, wherein the controller controls the printing apparatus so as to suspend processing of another job in accordance with a suspension factor of the job designated by the designation unit.

Abstract: A print job often includes secret information, and information may suffer sniffing from devices that execute distributed processing of jobs, or on the network. Therefore, executing the distributed processing of a print job including secret information reduces the robustness in terms of security protection. Hence, upon reception of a job, a task manager (TM) issues, to a dynamic job scheduler (DJS), a request of target devices of distributed processing according to a security level indicating the importance level of data included in that job. The DJS notifies the TM of the target devices, and the TM transmits divided jobs to the target devices.

Abstract: In profile adjustment processing, if colorimetric conditions are different from those of when the profile is created, notification is performed to enable the profile adjustment with a high accuracy. According to the present invention, there is provided a method for processing a profile including acquiring a colorimetric value by measuring a color of a patch printed by an image forming apparatus based on patch data, performing a calculation for creating a profile based on the colorimetric value, storing the profile created by the calculation in association with information about a condition of the colorimetric measurement, comparing, when the profile is adjusted, the colorimetric condition corresponding to the stored profile with a colorimetric condition used when the color of the patch is measured to adjust the profile, and notifying a user if the comparison determines that the colorimetric conditions do not coincide with each other.

Abstract: Since many ICC profile generation tools print and measure a large number of color patches and then make profile generation calculations, profile re-generation requires a long time. Hence, patch data are generated, calorimetric values corresponding to the patch data are obtained. Reference values of an Lab color space, which correspond to the patch data, are calculated using a conversion lookup table from a CMYK color space to the Lab color space, which is included in a profile. A conversion lookup table from the Lab color space to the CMYK color space, which is included in the profile, is updated using the calorimetric values and reference values.

Abstract: In a digital multi-function peripheral, image data to be output and first log information are generated based on an image forming job. Second log information embedded as digital watermark information is detected from the image data, and the reliability of the digital watermark information is computed. If the reliability is high, the first log information is held in a property storage unit 114 in an image management server 110. If the reliability is low, the first log information is held in the property storage unit 114 and the image data is held in a volume storage unit.

Abstract: In a computer system including a job scheduler which divides an input job and determines a client apparatus to assign the divided job, and a task manager which transmits the divided job to the client apparatus determined by the job scheduler, the job scheduler assigns the same job to a plurality of client apparatuses when the number of client apparatuses is larger than the number of divided jobs, and when the job is finished in one of the plurality of client apparatuses assigned the same job, execution of the job in the remaining client apparatuses is canceled so that the time until all jobs are finished is shortened.

Abstract: Even when a CPU gains higher performance and a distributed computing environment is being put in place, it is not easy to follow the speed of hardware image processing implemented by dedicated hardware. Hence, jobs of filter processing having a heavy operation load and low distributability are selectively and intensively input to a small number of resources having performance as high as possible. On the other hand, since the color conversion processing and gamma processing have high distributability, even when jobs are input to many resources having low performance, an improvement of the processing speed can be expected. Therefor, color conversion processing and gamma processing distribute jobs to many resources.

Abstract: In a network print system in which a printer and at least one client are connected to each other through a network, and at least a part of a job for the printer can be subjected to load distributed processing by grid computing, wherein when a printer driver of the printer is installed on any one of the at least one client, the system is adapted to build a grid computing network. In this arrangement, it is easily to build the grid computing network in which the printer job is subjected to load distributed processing.

Abstract: To obtain the same print result from MFPs with different specifications. When it is instructed to store image data read by a scanner of an MFP of a plurality of MFPs which forms the grid computing system, resources of an MFP converts a format of image data into a common format according to device profile information of the MFP and the image data whose format is converted is stored in a storage area shared in the system.

Abstract: There are cases in which an effective search index cannot be provided to an image data only by extracting character codes from a character object in PDL data. An image processing apparatus of the present invention obtains image data by rendering PDL data, and extracts a character object from the image data. The image processing apparatus performs character recognition processing on the extracted character object to obtain character code information, and provides metadata including the character code information to the image data.