Systems and methods for image optimization and enhancement in electrophotographic copying

1. A computer-implemented method for enhancing an image for printing, comprising:

identifying a plurality of true edge positions in the image;

generating an edge restoration signal based on image data associated with the plurality of true edge positions;

computing a halftone energy value for each of the plurality of true edge positions in the image;

generating, for each pixel position in the image, a boost value as a function of the edge restoration signal and an unsharp masking of the image, wherein a relative contribution of the unsharp masking for the boost value of the pixel position is determined based on a halftone energy value computed for the pixel position; and

applying the generated boost values to the image to generate an enhanced image.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the image has luminance values in a luminance component, and wherein the method further comprises:

applying a filter to the luminance values to generate filtered luminance values in a filtered luminance component.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein the filter comprises a low pass filter.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein the plurality of true edge positions in the image are identified based at least in part on analyzing the filtered luminance values.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 2 , wherein the generating the edge restoration signal is further based on the filtered luminance values associated with the plurality of true edge positions in the image.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , further comprising computing an unsharp masking for the image as a function of a difference between the luminance values and the filtered luminance values.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:

computing a gradient value at each of the plurality of true edge positions in the image; and

convolving the gradient value with a filter kernel.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the identifying the plurality of true edge positions comprises:

computing an edge strength value for each position in the image as a function of a gradient at the position in the image; and

identifying a position in the image as a true edge position when the computed edge strength value of the position is larger than a threshold.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising computing a K channel for the image.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 , wherein the computing the K channel comprises computing, for each pixel position in the image, a K value as a function of a halftone energy measure, an edge strength, and a colorfulness measure of the pixel position.

11. A system, comprising:

a print interface communicatively coupled with a print engine;

an image interface operable to receive an image comprising a plurality of pixels having a plurality of color components without an explicit K component; and

an image processing module communicatively coupled with the print interface and the image interface, the image processing module operable to:

compute, for each pixel position in the image, a halftone energy measure, an edge strength, and a colorfulness measure based on color values corresponding to the plurality of color components associated with the pixel position;

generate a K component for the image based on the halftone energy measure, the edge strength, and the colorfulness measure computed for each pixel position; and

output data representing the image and the K component to the print engine via the print interface.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the image processing module is further operable to apportion, for each pixel position, at least a portion of the color values corresponding to the plurality of color components to a K value.

13. The system of claim 11 , wherein the image processing module is further operable to:

identify a plurality of true edge positions in the image;

generate an edge restoration signal based on image data associated with the plurality of true edge positions; and

generate a boost value for each pixel position in the image as a function of the edge restoration signal and an unsharp masking of the image.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the image processing module is further operable to generate the K component by apportioning, for each pixel position, at least a portion of the generated boost value to the K value.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein the edge restoration signal is generated by:

computing a gradient value at each of the plurality of true edge positions in the image; and

convolving the gradient value with a filter kernel.

16. The system of claim 13 , wherein the image processing module is further operable to determine, for each pixel position in the image, an unsharp masking contribution factor as a function of the corresponding halftone energy measure of the pixel position, and wherein the boost value is generated for the pixel position based on a contribution of the unsharp masking according to the unsharp masking contribution factor determined for the pixel position.

17. The system of claim 11 , wherein the received image includes luminance values in a luminance component, and wherein the image processing module is further operable to

apply a filter to the luminance values to generate filtered luminance values in a filtered luminance component; and

compute an unsharp masking for the image as a function of a difference between the luminance values and the filtered luminance values.

18. The system of claim 11 , wherein the received image includes luminance values in a luminance component, and wherein the image processing module is further operable to apply a filter to the luminance values to generate filtered luminance values, wherein the plurality of true edge positions in the image are identified based at least in part on analyzing the filtered luminance value.

19. The system of claim 11 , wherein the image processing module is further operable to:

compute an edge strength value for each pixel position in the image as a function of a gradient at the pixel position in the image.

20. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

obtaining an image comprising a plurality of pixels having a plurality of color components without an explicit K component;

computing, for each pixel position in the image, a halftone energy measure based on color values corresponding to the plurality of color components at the pixel position;

generating a K component for the image based on the halftone energy measure computed for each pixel position; and

outputting data representing the image and the K component.