Minolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha

Minolta Company, Ltd.

Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Konica Minolta, Inc.

Minolta Camera Co., Ltd.

Toshio Tsuboi

Munehiro Nakatani

Shigenobu Fukushima

Takayuki Nabeshima

Keiji Nakatani

Junji Nishigaki

Shigeru Moriya

Katsuaki Tajima

Daisetsu Tohyama

Hideo Muramatsu

Kanako Hamano

Katsuyuki Hirata

Hiroaki Hamano

Tatsuya Isono

Hirokazu Yamada

Masaki Tanaka

Akio Nakajima

Tetsuya Sakai

Takashi Harashima

Mitsuru Obara

Shoji Imaizumi

Yoshihiko Hirota

Tatsuya Eguchi

Hiroshi Sugiura

Masahiro Kamiya

Masanori Yamamoto

Soh Hirota

Hironori Akashi

Katsuyuki Ikuta

Kunihiko Omura

Osamu Yamada

Shota Igo

Yoshiyuki Kurahashi

Hiroaki Hamamo

Shigenobu Fukushina

An image forming apparatus includes: a housing part that is capable of housing a plurality of recording materials in such a manner that one recording material is put on another; a transport part that transports a recording material from the housing part; and a hardware processor that detects a kind of the recording material transported by the transport part, detects an amount of the recording materials housed in the housing part, detects replacement of recording materials housed in the housing part, or addition of recording materials in the housing part, on the basis of a result of the detection by the hardware processor, and, on the basis of a result of the detection by the hardware processor, switches whether or not to execute, by the hardware processor, the kind detection of the recording materials housed in the housing part.

Image forming apparatus, and method for controlling the same

An image forming apparatus of the invention includes an image carrier, an exposure device performing exposure for forming a toner image on a surface of the image carrier and having at least a first exposure light source and a second exposure light source, a sensor for detecting specified patterns, which are formed on the image carrier at a specified time with use of the first and second exposure light sources, a storing unit for storing a correlation, which is attained from a detection result by the sensor, between the first and second exposure light sources, and a controller for controlling the first and second exposure light sources based on the correlation.

Image forming apparatus, and exposure control method therefor

An image forming apparatus performs dither processing on image data to form an image subjected to pseudo-halftone processing. The image forming apparatus includes a dither processing unit that performs dither processing on image data, and a dither pattern generation unit that generates a dither matrix for use in the dither processing, in accordance with an output gradation level. The dither matrix has a size of M&#xd7;N pixels, and has a plurality of halftone dots arranged in a predetermined pattern in accordance with the output gradation level in order to represent a gradation of each color. The plurality of halftone dots are arranged in the dither matrix such that the halftone dots corresponding to at least two colors are substantially identical in color area ratio to each other in the dither matrix irrespective of a relative position with respective to the colors.

Image forming apparatus capable of suppressing color variation due to misregistration of colors, image forming method, and computer-readable medium

An image forming apparatus includes a secondary transfer roller that becomes a pressed state to make an intermediate transfer belt perform a transfer process and can move between the pressed state and a separated state, a press and separation driving device for driving the secondary transfer roller to become the pressed state and the separated state, a press and separation detecting device for detecting a pressed or separated state, and a voltage applying portion for applying a voltage between the intermediate transfer belt and the secondary transfer roller. The press and separation detecting device includes a resistor for detecting a current and a determination portion for determining a pressed or separated state in accordance with the detected current.

Image forming apparatus and method for detecting separated state of transfer member

An image forming apparatus has a structure in which a toner image formed in an electrophotographic process is transferred from an intermediate transfer belt to a member to be transferred. The apparatus includes a secondary transfer roller that becomes a pressure contact state with respect to the intermediate transfer belt to make it perform a transfer process and can move between the pressure contact state and a separated state, and a press and separation driving device for driving the secondary transfer roller to become the pressure contact state and the separated state. The pressure contact state or the separated state of the secondary transfer roller is detected in accordance with a variation of an output of an IDC sensor for detecting a state of a bare surface of the intermediate transfer belt.

Image forming apparatus and method for detecting separated state of transfer unit

An image processing apparatus for outputting an image by a printer or a display is provided, in which color reproducibility in the image output of plural pages becomes uniform. The apparatus comprises an image memory for memorizing image data of all pages of one output job that is given to an output device, decision portion for deciding whether the image data of all pages are data within a color reproduction range of the output device or not. A color compression process is performed for the image data of all pages uniformly only when it is decided that the image data of all pages are not data within the color reproduction range of the output device.

Image processing apparatus

An image processing apparatus is provided in which the frequency of undesired delay of the image output can be reduced. The image processing apparatus comprises an image processor for performing a process defined by a parameter on the image data of the received job, a decision portion for deciding a state of the image data of the received job, and a controller for setting a parameter in accordance with the state that is decided by the decision portion if an interval between the received job and the previously received job is longer than a predetermined time, and for setting the parameter that was used in the last job despite the state that is decided by the decision portion if the interval is not longer than the predetermined time.

A method and device for estimating toner concentration in a two-component developer consisting of toner and carrier for an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, and an image forming apparatus equipped with such device. The above method and device calculate an amount of toner charge from data detected by a transferred toner amount sensor, compensate the toner charge based on environmental humidity data and cumulative use period data of the image forming apparatus, and estimate toner concentration. The image forming apparatus equipped with the above device exerts control to predict toner consumption from the estimated toner concentration, supply toner to a developing unit according to the predicted toner consumption, and maintain the toner concentration in the developer at predetermined concentration.

Method and device for estimating toner concentration and image forming apparatus equipped with such device

An apparatus, a method and a system for image processing with a color correction device are provided in which the number of times of automatic execution of calibration is reduced and the performance of an image output apparatus is used adequately. The apparatus includes a color space conversion portionfor converting input image data Dinto data Dof a standard color space and a reproduction range decision portionfor deciding whether the input image data Dthat were converted into the standard color space are within a reference range of a color reproduction in an image output. If it is decided that the input image data are out of the reference range, the calibration is performed so that the color reproduction range is made close to the reference range.

Apparatus, method and system for image processing with a color correction device

A data communication apparatus and method are provided in which a faithful color reproduction is enabled in the reception side. The data communication apparatus comprises a first communication portion for a first form of image data communication, a second communication portion for a second form of image data communication and a transmission controller for selecting one of the first form and the second form in accordance with information indicating a color reproduction range of image output in the other end. The image data are transmitted to the other end by the first or the second communication portion corresponding to the selected form.

Data communication apparatus

An image output system is realized in which many operations are not required for the color reproduction. As a preprocessor of an output device for reproducing an image, an image processing apparatus is provided that comprises attribution decision portions and for deciding the attribution of input image D , a color decision portion for deciding whether the input image is an image within a color reproduction range or not, a color range change portion for changing the color range of the input image when it is decided that the input image is not an image within the color reproduction range and a process contents switching portion for switching the change contents of the color range in the color range change portion in accordance with the decisions of the attribution decision portions and

Image distortion is corrected in a color printer wherein print units for a plurality of colors are aligned to form a color image by superposing images formed by the print units. A quantity of image distortion is detected, and correction data of main scan address and subscan address are calculated and stored according to the detected image distortion for each main scan address. When input color image data are corrected, printing position is corrected in combination of address change with density interpolation. When the correction data exceeds the maximum correction range, the correction data are replaced by the maximum in the correction range to utilize the capability of the distortion correction of the printer. Further, in the image data correction, after the image data are converted to data having a smaller number of gradation levels, the data are delayed according to the serial arrangement of the print units. Then, the delayed data are converted again for printing.

Image forming apparatus

An image data processing system includes a still video camera having a detachable storing medium for storing an image data, and a digital image forming apparatus in which an image of an original document is read by an image sensor to generate an image data, and the image is formed on a paper with electrophotographic process based on the image data. Also, the image data is processed in the image forming apparatus to be stored on the storing medium of the still video camera loaded detachably from the image forming apparatus.

Image data processing system with still video camera and digital image

An image reading apparatus for reading an image of an original while transporting the original from an original tray to an image reading position. When an original once read has to be read again due to some trouble, the original is automatically transported to an original tray provided upstream of the reading position so that the original can be automatically read again without operator intervention.

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Okazaki, Japan

Toshio Tsuboi