Image processing apparatus

Abstract

An image processing apparatus capable of enhancing the sharpness of characters and lines. A unidimensional color scanner has a plurality of kinds of photoelectric transducer elements for different colors which are arranged regularly in a unidimensional direction. The scanner outputs, when the center of a pixel of interest to be processed is coincident with a first color transducer element, a color signal associated with the pixel of interest as a first color signal. When the center of the pixel of interest is not coincident with the first color, the scanner outputs the sums of values inversely proportional to the distances of the outputs of the transducer element of desired wavelength bands which have centers thereof located at both sides of the pixel of interest as a second and a third color signal. A correcting section corrects the first color signal such that the MTF characteristics of color signals from the scanner coincide. An image processing section processes an image by the first color signal corrected by the correcting section as second and third color signals. A deciding section may be provided for determining the characteristic of an image signal area by area. Then, the image processing section will process color signals from the scanner on the basis of the area-by-area characteristic.