JP2003072156A - Printer driver - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printer driver which can make a hue change of each printed matter obtained when many sheets are printed considerably small by estimating a change of engine characteristics and changing a color profile. SOLUTION: The printer driver for color imaging has a function of counting the number of printing sheets after a printing start and a function of adjusting the color profile so as to obtain the same hue as at the printing start time by estimating engine characteristics of a printer from the number of printing sheets counted by the function.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer driver that changes a color profile according to printer characteristics.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A printer driver for a color printer has a density conversion table (color profile, color conversion table), and the color data (color information) input from an application with reference to the table is suitable for the printer. It was converted to color and output. In other words, the color data converted according to the rules described in the color profile was output to the printer. The color profile is generally created based on the engine characteristics (color reproducibility) of the printer in the best state (ideal state).
That is, a rule (including a table) for converting the color data so that the color data input from the application and the color tone of the printed matter output from the printer are the same in the ideal printer is described.

[0003]

However, it is difficult for a printer to always maintain constant engine characteristics. This is because the engine characteristics change due to factors such as temperature and humidity during printing and fatigue of the photoconductor (change with time). Changes in engine characteristics are particularly noticeable in color laser printers. When a large number of identical originals (color originals) are printed using a color laser printer, the printed matter printed on the first sheet and the printed matter printed last are
In some cases, the difference between the two colors (hue, brightness, saturation, etc.) can be easily confirmed visually.

In order to avoid such a phenomenon, there is also a printer device that shifts to a color adjustment mode when a certain number of sheets are printed. However, if the mode is changed to the color adjustment mode during printing, the printing will be interrupted for a long time.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and by changing the color profile by predicting the change in engine characteristics, the change in color tone of each printed matter obtained when multi-copy printing is performed. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printer driver capable of making the size extremely small.

[0006]

In order to achieve such an object, a first printer driver invention is a printer driver for forming a color image, and has a function of counting the number of printed sheets from the start of printing, and a function. It has a function of predicting the engine characteristics of the printer from the number of printed sheets counted by and adjusting the color profile so as to obtain a printed matter with the same color tone as at the start of printing.
As a result, when continuous printing is performed, it is possible to extremely reduce the change in color tone such as the density of the printed matter obtained at the beginning and the end of printing.

A second printer driver invention is a printer driver for forming a color image, and predicts engine characteristics of the printer from the outside air condition to obtain a color profile so that a printed matter having the same color tone as that at the start of printing can be obtained. It is characterized by having a function of adjusting. As a result, it is possible to extremely reduce the change in the printing result (the difference in the color tone of the obtained printed matter) due to the outside air condition.

A third printer driver invention is a printer driver for forming a color image, which has a function of counting the number of printed sheets from the start of printing, and the engine characteristics of the printer based on the number of printed sheets and the outside air condition counted by the function. And a function of adjusting a color profile so that a printed matter having the same color tone as that at the start of printing can be obtained. As a result, when continuous printing is performed, it is possible to extremely reduce the change in color tone such as the density of the printed matter obtained at the beginning and the end of printing.

Each of the above drivers further has a function of registering whether or not each function is enabled based on the setting by the user, and when each function is set not to enable each function, The color profile may not be adjusted. According to this, it is possible to perform printing that passes the processing using each of the above functions according to the user's request, and satisfy both the user's request for obtaining high-quality printed matter and the user's request for high-speed printability. You can

[0010]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION A printer driver according to the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to embodiments.

(First Printer Driver) The first printer driver according to the present invention predicts the engine characteristic of the printer according to the number of continuous prints, and changes the density value of the color profile based on the prediction result. The details will be described below.

The first printer driver has a print number counting function and a color profile adjusting function in addition to the function of a known color printer driver.

The number-of-printed-sheets counting function is a function of counting the number of printed sheets from the start to the end of printing. That is,
The number of printed sheets in one printing operation (processing) is counted. For example, when an application instructs to print a copy (a is an integer of 1 or more) of a copy (a is an integer of 1 or more), printing starts (printing of the first sheet) and ends printing (a The number of printed sheets up to (the printing of the xbth sheet) is counted. When the print command C is input and another print command D is input before the print processing according to the command is completed, from the start of printing the print command C to the end of the printing of the print command D. During this period, the number of printed sheets is counted.

The color profile adjustment function predicts how the density value of the printed matter changes from the number of printed sheets counted by the printed sheet count function (prediction function), and adjusts the color profile based on this prediction result. It has a function to perform (adjustment function).

The predicting function is a function of predicting a change in the density value of the printed matter depending on the number of printed sheets. The prediction method can be set arbitrarily according to the adopted printer. For example, a relational expression between the number of printed sheets and the degree of change of the density value (ratio, amount of change, etc.) is prepared, and the number of printed sheets counted by the number of printed sheet counting means is substituted into this expression to determine the degree of change of the density value. You may understand. Alternatively, a table showing the relationship between the number of printed sheets and the degree of change of the density value may be prepared, and the degree of change of the density value may be known using the table and the number of printed sheets. The adjusting function is a function of adjusting (changing or correcting) the color profile according to the prediction result (the degree of change of the density value in the above example) obtained by the predicting function. That is, the density value of the color profile is changed based on the prediction result so that the same density value as in the initial printing stage can be obtained.

The printer driver refers to the color profile and corrects the density value of the color data input from the host according to the printer (engine characteristic) as in the conventional case. Since the color profile used for this correction is sequentially changed according to the printer status (predicted status) as described above, when multiple copies of the same document are printed continuously, the first printed matter and the last printed matter are printed. The densities of the printed matter are almost equal. Next, the operation of the printer driver when applied to the host computer 101 shown in FIG. 1 will be described.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of the host computer 101. As shown in FIG. 1, the host computer 10
The configuration of 1 is the same as that of the conventional host computer 101. That is, the host computer 101 shown in FIG.
Includes application software 102, graphic engine 103, printer driver 104, and OS 10.
6 and the host computer hardware 107. The printer driver 104 uses the color profile 10
Have 5.

The procedure for transmitting color information from the host computer 101 to the printer may be the same as the conventional procedure.
That is, when the color information is input from the application 102 via the graphic engine 103, the printer driver 104 refers to the color profile 105, converts the input color information into a color suitable for the printer, and outputs the color to the printer. . Here, the printer driver according to the present embodiment counts the number of printed sheets from the start of printing by the above-described printed sheet number counting function (printed sheet counting function). This number of prints is input to the color profile adjustment function. The color profile adjustment function adjusts the color profile as described above according to the number of printed sheets (prediction function, adjustment function). By using this adjusted color profile for conversion of color information, it is possible to avoid the phenomenon that the hue is different between the initial stage and the final stage of printing even when printing a large number of sheets.

The printer driver further includes
It is preferable to have a density adjustment mode setting function capable of setting whether or not to enable the process of performing density adjustment by predicting the engine characteristics of the printer. That is, it is preferable to select whether to function as the first printer driver or to proceed as usual (without changing the color profile according to the number of prints) without using the function. In other words, the density adjustment mode setting function is a function for setting whether or not to enable the above-described functions (printed sheet count function and / or color profile adjustment function). By providing this function in the printer driver, the above processing is disabled when the change in color tone between the initial and final stages of printing is not a problem, or when high-speed printability is required rather than the problem of color change. Therefore, it is possible to perform printing according to the type / content of the document to be printed and the urgency of the user. An example of processing when this function is provided is shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 2, when the function for predicting the engine characteristics (print count counting function and color profile adjusting function) is set not to be used (step S201 / NO), the input color information is Output to printer. That is, the process of adjusting the color profile from the number of printed sheets (step S202) and the process of calculating the density value from the adjusted color profile (step S204) are passed. This reduces the processing load on the printer driver and enables faster printing. In other words, depending on the document to be printed and the urgency of printing,
The user can select to enable or disable the color adjustment.

(Second Printer Driver) The second printer driver according to the present invention predicts the engine characteristic of the printer from the outside air condition (temperature and / or humidity) at the time of printing, and changes the color profile according to this prediction. . For other configurations, the configuration of the conventional printer driver may be adopted as in the case of the first printer driver. As the outside air condition, the outside air condition at any place may be adopted,
It is preferable to adopt the outside air condition of a predetermined place such as a room where the printer is placed, a predetermined place inside the printer, and an outside air condition substantially outside the printer casing. The user may measure the outside air condition and cause the driver to input the measurement result. Further, a device for measuring the outside air condition may be installed in the above-mentioned place (a place for measuring the outside air condition), the measurement result (outside air condition) may be acquired from this device, and this result may be adopted.

The relationship between the outside air condition and the characteristics of the printer is set in advance. That is, a relational expression and a table between the outside air condition and the degree of change of the density value are prepared, and the change of the engine characteristic (in this case, the degree of change of the density value) is predicted similarly to the first printer driver. . The change in the engine characteristics predicted in this way is used to change the color profile by a function equivalent to the adjusting function. By adopting such a configuration, it becomes possible to perform extremely highly accurate density adjustment.

When the user inputs the outside air condition,
A display as shown in FIG. 3 may be displayed on the display unit of the host computer 101, and the user may input the outside air condition using the input unit.

As with the first printer driver,
It is preferable to be able to set whether to enable or disable the above function.

The preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described above, but the above-described embodiments are merely examples for explaining the present invention, and are intended to limit the scope of the present invention to only these embodiments. Absent. A person skilled in the art can implement the present invention in various other modes in which various variations, improvements, modifications, simplifications, etc. are added to the above embodiments without departing from the gist of the present invention.

For example, the change in engine characteristics may be predicted from the number of printed sheets and the outside air condition. That is,
The first printer driver and the second printer driver are combined, and the prediction function predicts a change in engine characteristics using the number of prints and the outside air condition. in this case,
The prediction function prepares a relational expression or table of three factors of the number of printed sheets, the outside air condition, and the engine characteristic, and predicts a change in the engine characteristic by substituting the number of printed sheets and the outside air condition into the equation or table. In this case, it may be possible to set which of the number of prints and the outside air condition is used to predict the change in the engine characteristics, that is, which of the first printer driver and the second printer driver is used.

Further, in the above description, the prediction function is described as obtaining the change rate (degree, etc.) of the engine characteristic, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the change amount may be obtained. The prediction function may obtain the engine characteristic of the changed result instead of obtaining the change of the engine characteristic.

In the above description, the change in the engine characteristic is the change in the output density value. That is, although it has been described that the engine characteristics change due to the change in the density value of each color at the beginning and the end of printing, the present invention is not limited to this description. That is, changes in elements other than the density value (each element of color such as tint, saturation, and lightness) may be predicted, and the color profile may be changed based on the prediction result.

[0029]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, it is possible to predict the state of the printer (change in characteristics) and change the color information to be output to the printer. Even if the printing is performed, the tint of the printed matter can be made extremely small at the beginning and the end of printing.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a relationship between a printer driver and a host computer according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart for explaining a processing example of a printer driver according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an example of a screen that allows a user to input outside air conditions.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 host computer 102 Application software 103 graphic engine 104 printer driver 105 color profile 106 OS 107 hardware

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    F-term (reference) 2C087 AA15 AB05 AC08 BA04 BA07                       BD36 BD53 CB10 DA01 DA16                 2H027 DA11 DA14 DA45 DE07 EB04                       EC06 EC20                 5B021 AA01 CC06 LG07                 5B057 AA11 CA01 CA08 CA12 CA16                       CB01 CB08 CB12 CB16 CC01                       CE17 CH07 CH08                 5C074 AA08 BB30 DD21 EE03 EE06                       FF15 HH04

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A printer driver for forming a color image, having a function of counting the number of printed sheets from the start of printing, and predicting the engine characteristic of the printer from the number of printed sheets counted by the function, the same as at the start of printing. A printer driver having a function of adjusting a color profile so as to obtain a printed matter having a hue. 2. A printer driver for forming a color image, which has a function of predicting engine characteristics of the printer from outside air conditions and adjusting a color profile so that a printed matter having the same color tone as that at the start of printing can be obtained. Characteristic printer driver. 3. A printer driver for forming a color image, having a function of counting the number of printed sheets from the start of printing, and predicting the engine characteristics of the printer from the number of printed sheets and the outside air condition counted by the function to start printing. A printer driver having a function of adjusting a color profile so that a printed matter having the same color tone as that obtained can be obtained. 4. The printer driver according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the driver further comprises:
It has a function to register whether to enable each of the above functions based on the setting from the user, and if the function is set not to enable each of the functions, do not adjust the color profile. A printer driver characterized by.