Gretag Imaging Ag

Imaging Solutions A.g.

Markus Näf

Andreas Held

The present invention refers to a method for automatically correcting color defective areas in an image, which defective color areas were recorded with a color spectrum deviating from the actual color spectrum of said areas without color defects, wherein basic areas in the image are identified on the basis of features which are common for these recorded defective areas, said basic areas supporting an increased likelihood to include defective areas, and the processing is then reduced to the basic areas to identify borderlines and/or centres of the defective areas, and afterwards, it is identified whether the localized basic area or areas deemed to be defective are defective or not, and finally, if a localized basic area has been identified to be defective, a correction mask is created to correct the visual appearance of the defective area.

Automatic color defect correction

For the manufacture of large format photographic prints, the original image (V) is divided into a matrix arrangement of partial image originals (A.sub.1 -D.sub.4) consisting of lines (1-4) and columns (A-D) with lateral edges (R) which are parallel to the columns of the matrix arrangement. A linear arrangement of sequential latent partial pictures is produced from the individual partial image originals by way of a printer and by sequential projection, whereby the projection is carried out in such a way that the lateral edges (R) of the latent partial pictures which correspond to the lateral edges of the latent partial image originals extend parallel to the longitudinal direction (L) of the linear arrangement of the latent partial pictures. The exposed copy material (P) is developed in a pass-through developing arrangement, whereby a partial image copy is produced from each partial image original and the partial image copies are assembled to a complete compound picture (K). To avoid color and/or density jumps in the region of the separation lines between the individual partial image copies, those partial image copies (B.sub.1 -B.sub.4, D.sub.1 -D.sub.4) which correspond to the partial image originals (B.sub.1 -B.sub.4, D.sub.1 -D.sub.4) in each second column (B,D) of the matrix arrangement, are respectively guided through the pass-through developing arrangement and rotated in their proper plane by 180.degree., relative to the latent partial images which correspond to the partial image originals in the other columns of the matrix arrangement.

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Zurich, Switzerland

Markus Näf