Agfa-gevaert Ag

Horst Bickl

Helmut Treiber

Gunter Findeis

Wolfgang Zahn

Bernd Payrhammer

Hans-Peter Huber

Erich Burger

Berthold Fergg

Wolfram Betzold

Bernhard Knor

A method of copying a colored original involves measuring the transparency of localized regions of the original in each of the three primary colors. Three localized transparency ratios for each region are formed from the transparency values for the different colors. Three corresponding average transparency ratios for the original as a whole are computed from the localized transparency ratios. Each average transparency ratio is compared with a statistical average of similar ratios obtained from a large number of average originals. If an average transparency ratio of the original to be copied deviates from the corresponding statistical average by more than a predetermined amount, the number of each of the localized transparency ratios lying inside and outside of a predetermined range about the corresponding average transparency ratio of the original is counted. When the number outside of a predetermined range exceeds the number inside, a color dominant is assumed to be present in the original. Otherwise, a color tinge is assumed to be present. The original is copied using a correction factor which depends upon whether a color dominant or a color tinge is present. An alternative method summing the differences between the localized transparency ratios and the respective average transparency ratios of the original is also presented.

Method of and arrangement for copying a colored original

An optical copying arrangement, particularly an electrostatic copying arrangement, has a carriage provided with a transparent supporting plate for an original and movable in a substantially horizontal direction, a drive for moving an image carrier onto which an image is to be copied from the original, and a scanning system arranged to scan the original supported on the supporting plate by successive strips and form a copy on the image carrier, wherein the supporting plate has a part which in initial position of the carriage is located prior to a first strip, considered in direction of carriage movement, and is bent downwardly relative to the main part of the supporting plate.

Optical copying arrangement

An electrostatic copying device comprises a transparent support plate onto which an original to be copied is placed. A slide carrying a recording cylinder provided on its peripheral surface with a photosensitive layer is movable beneath and parallel to the transparent support plate. At least one gear coaxially fixed to the recording cylinder meshes with a rack extending parallel to the path of movement of the slide to rotate the recording cylinder during movement of the slide. The slide carries also a raster objective stepwise scanning the original during movement of the slide to produce a latent image of the original on the photosensitive peripheral surface of the recording cylinder, which picture is transferred to an endless dielectric band forming an intermediate recording carrier and from the latter the picture is transferred to a photosensitive paper sheet fed onto the band along which also a plurality of usual treating stations are arranged for developing the image on the paper sheet.

Electrostatic copying device

Successive frames of a web of photographic color film are subjected to objective examination during transport through an automatic evaluating circuit which may constitute a discrete prereader or a prereader which is integrated into a copying machine upstream of the copying station. The prereader furnishes signals which represent color and/or density correction data for reproduction of those film frames which can be properly copied only with a setting of exposure controls which deviates from the average setting for copying of the majority of film frames. The objective examination of all film frames is followed by a subjective examination which is performed by an attendant who inspects at least some of those film frames whose examination by the prereader resulted in the generation of correction signals. The attendant inspects the film frames at the copying station or at a second station which is located immediately downstream of a discrete prereader, and the attendant simultaneously observes the corresponding correction signals which are furnished by the evaluating circuit and are displayed close to the copying station or in register with film frames at the second station. The attendant can approve, modify or cancel the correction signals, and can also initiate the generation of additional signals, e.g., to identify those film frames which are unfit for copying.

Method and apparatus for evaluating developed photographic films prior

An automatic prereader for exposed and developed frames of a web of spliced-together photographic color films is preceded by a first station and followed by a second station at the first of which groups of successive frames are subjected to a first subjective examination by an attendant and at the second of which some of the frames are subjected to renewed subjective examination by the same attendant. The attendant actuates one or more pushbuttons upon examination of frames at the first station to produce signals which denote improperly oriented frames, frames which were exposed in artificial light and/or frames which are unfit for copying. Such signals are used to modify signals which are furnished by the automatic prereader. The modified and unmodified signals which are furnished by the prereader are examined for intensity, and those signals whose intensity is outside of a preselected range are displayed at the second station so that the attendant can observe such signals simultaneously with observation of the respective film frames and is in a position to initiate the generation of additional signals which are used to modify or erase the corresponding signals from the prereader before the signals are transmitted to the exposure controls of a copying machine.

Method and apparatus for evaluating developed photographic films

Each original in a strip of such originals is scanned during longitudinal travel of the strip using a scanning spot which repeatedly traverses a stationary scan line extending transverse to the direction of strip travel. The scanning spot has a scanning speed such that the scanning spot travels from one to the other end of the stationary scan line in a time less than the time in which the strip travels a distance equal to the breadth of the scan line. The scanning spot which repeatedly traverses the scan line is generated using a light shield having a slit which delimits the scan line and a rotating disk having equiangularly spaced apertures which move through a stationary light beam passing through the moving strip of originals.

Determination of extreme density values of photographic originals

Apparatus for processing signals which are transmitted by the transducers of photoelectric cells scanning discrete marginal fields of square or rectangular film frames on a web of photographic film has relay-actuated switches which can connect the transducers of selected cells to each other and with the foreground and background inputs of a signal receiving circuit which is connected to the exposure controls of a copying machine or to a data carrier. The frames are examined by an attendant who energizes selected relays or several relays at a time to thereby cause the switches to transmit to the two inputs appropriate signals denoting the density and/or other characteristics of corresponding groups of neighboring marginal fields, depending upon whether the frame which is being inspected by attendant has been exposed in normal orientation, at right angles to normal orientation or upside down.

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Pullach, Germany

Horst Bickl