The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 27, 1997
Filed:
Aug. 05, 1992
William J Allen, Portland, OR (US);
Steven O Miller, Vancouver, WA (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A process is disclosed for controlling ink volume in liquid ink printing systems such as ink jet printers. The process examines the total ink volume per pixel as specified in source image data (typically 24-bit, three color data), i.e. before digital halftoning. For each pixel of data, the specified ink volume is compared to a selected maximum total ink volume per pixel. The maximum total ink volume is selected, depending upon the printing medium and environmental conditions, so as to provide good color coverage while avoiding curl, bleeding and other adverse effects of excessive ink volume. The source image ink volume is reduced so as to form depleted image data in which the ink volumes per pixel do not exceed the selected maximum. Preferably, a threshold ink volume also is selected, below which no ink limiting is applied, thereby avoiding washed-out images at lower ink volumes. Above the threshold, the ink volume is scaled to a value below the maximum, preferably by linear scaling.