A printing method and a printer using the same

Abstract

The present application relates to a printing method and a printer using the same, wherein the printing method identifies an area to be improved in a to-be-printed image before printing, and performs a hollowing treatment on the area to be improved; when printing the area to be improved, the printing method causes the hollowed light-colored pixel points in the area to be improved not to be covered by toner. The hollowed image is printed with toner according to the hollowed pattern, and the hollowed position is not covered by toner, so that no closed and narrow space is formed, and air expansion does not push toner to other areas when the laser printer melts toner, thereby improving the printing image quality on rough paper and preventing the printing image from being contaminated due to unevenness of the paper.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of printing technology, and more particularly to a printing method and a printer using the printing method. Background Technology

[0002] During the printing process, laser printers absorb toner on the paper, forming a dense toner layer in darker areas. When this layer covers the paper, it creates a small, enclosed space between the paper and the toner. When the toner is heated and melts, the air within this space expands rapidly, pushing some of the toner from the space onto non-printing areas of the paper, resulting in image contamination. This contaminated toner is relatively small and randomly distributed, forming irregular, light-colored smudges that affect print quality. Therefore, further improvements to the existing technology are needed. Summary of the Invention

[0003] The first technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a printing method that can suppress the contamination of printed images, in contrast to the above-mentioned prior art.

[0004] The second technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a printer that applies the above-mentioned printing method, in view of the prior art.

[0005] The technical solution adopted by the present invention to solve the first technical problem mentioned above is: a printing method, characterized in that:

[0006] Before printing, identify the areas to be improved in the image to be printed and perform a cutout process on these areas;

[0007] When printing, when printing the area to be improved, ensure that the light-colored pixels in the area to be improved, which have been cut out, are not covered with toner.

[0008] To prevent white spots from appearing in light-colored areas during printing, the cutout points of adjacent layers above and below the area to be improved should be staggered during the cutout process.

[0009] To ensure the integrity of the printed color block image and avoid forming jagged images in the area to be improved, thus affecting the printing effect, the last row of the area to be improved is not cut out during the cutout process.

[0010] Preferably, the method for identifying the area to be improved in the image to be printed is as follows:

[0011] Step 1: Iterate through the pixels of the image to be printed and filter out the dark and light color blocks in the image to be printed;

[0012] Step 2: For each dark color block, perform the following judgment:

[0013] Determine whether a pixel in the current dark color block is adjacent to a light color block. If so, enter the region to be improved identification mode; otherwise, do not enter the region to be improved identification mode.

[0014] Following the above judgment method, each pixel of all dark color blocks is traversed sequentially to obtain the region that has entered the recognition mode of the region to be improved, and then proceed to step 3.

[0015] Step 3: Determine whether the length of the area entering the area to be improved identification mode has reached the preset length. If yes, the current area is the area to be improved; otherwise, the current area is not the area to be improved.

[0016] To further improve the quality of printed images, the specific process of hollowing out the area to be improved is as follows: hollow out the N rows above the junction of the area to be improved and the light-colored block, where N is a preset positive integer.

[0017] Preferably, the image to be printed is a black and white image, the dark color block is a color block with a pixel value of 0, and the light color block is a color block with a pixel value of 255.

[0018] The technical solution adopted by the present invention to solve the second technical problem mentioned above is: a printer, including a processor and a memory communicatively connected to the processor, wherein the memory stores instructions, characterized in that: the instructions are executed by the processor to implement the printing method as described above.

[0019] Compared with the prior art, the advantages of the present invention are as follows: Before printing, the printing method identifies the areas to be improved in the image to be printed and performs a cutout process on these areas; during printing, when printing the areas to be improved, the light-colored pixels in the cutout areas are not covered with toner, thereby forcing the bottom of the dark areas and the image of dark lines of a certain length to be cut out according to a preset pattern. When printing the cutout image, the toner will cover the paper surface according to the cutout pattern, and the cutout positions will no longer be covered with toner. This prevents the formation of a closed and narrow space, and when the laser printer melts the toner, there will be no air expansion that pushes the toner to other areas, thus improving the image quality of the printed image on rough paper and suppressing the problem of image contamination caused by the unevenness of the paper surface. Attached Figure Description

[0020] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the image to be printed in an embodiment of the present invention;

[0021] Figure 2 For the purposes of this embodiment of the invention Figure 1 A schematic diagram showing the hollowing-out treatment of the areas to be improved identified in the image;

[0022] Figure 3 for Figure 2 A magnified view of the first selected area in the image;

[0023] Figure 4 for Figure 2 A magnified view of the second selected area in the middle;

[0024] Figure 5 This is a comparison image of an image printed without using the printing method of this invention and an image printed using the printing method of this invention in an embodiment of the invention. Detailed Implementation

[0025] The present invention will be further described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments.

[0026] As described in the background technology, the image to be processed needs to meet the following conditions: First, it must be a dark pixel; light pixels will not form a dense toner cover during printing, thus avoiding the problems described above. Second, it must form a dark color block; a single dark pixel will not cause the aforementioned problems. Third, the length of the dark color block needs to meet certain conditions; the probability of a dark color block being too short to cover uneven areas is very low and can be disregarded. Fourth, the area adjacent to the dark color block must be a light color area; when the toner in the light color area expands and diffuses due to air heating, it will still remain within the range of the light color block and will not contaminate the image.

[0027] Therefore, the printing method in this embodiment is as follows: before printing, the area to be improved in the image to be printed is identified, and the area to be improved is hollowed out; during printing, when printing the area to be improved, the light-colored pixels in the hollowed-out area are not covered with toner. The hollowing-out processing algorithm in this embodiment can be a pre-existing image hollowing-out algorithm.

[0028] However, to prevent white spots from appearing in light-colored areas during printing, this embodiment staggers the cutout points of adjacent layers above and below the area to be improved during the cutout process. Furthermore, to ensure the integrity of the printed color block image and avoid the possibility of jagged edges due to the cutout process affecting the printing effect, the last row of the area to be improved is not cut out during the cutout process. Of course, the number of rows of pixels on the lower edge of the area to be improved that are not cut out is determined specifically as needed.

[0029] The specific process for hollowing out the area to be improved is as follows: Hollow out the N rows above the junction of the area to be improved and the light-colored block, where N is a preset positive integer. The specific value of N is determined based on experience or experimentation.

[0030] In this embodiment, the method for identifying the area to be improved in the image to be printed is as follows:

[0031] Step 1: Iterate through the pixels of the image to be printed and filter out the dark and light color blocks in the image to be printed;

[0032] Step 2: For each dark color block, perform the following judgment:

[0033] Determine whether a pixel in the current dark color block is adjacent to a light color block. If so, enter the region to be improved identification mode; otherwise, do not enter the region to be improved identification mode.

[0034] Following the above judgment method, each pixel of all dark color blocks is traversed sequentially to obtain the region that has entered the recognition mode of the region to be improved, and then proceed to step 3.

[0035] Step 3: Determine whether the length of the area entering the area to be improved identification mode has reached the preset length. If yes, the current area is the area to be improved; otherwise, the current area is not the area to be improved.

[0036] like Figure 1 As shown, the image to be printed in this embodiment is a black and white image. The dark color blocks are color blocks with a pixel value of 0, and the light color blocks are color blocks with a pixel value of 255. Figure 2 To Figure 1 The result of hollowing out a black and white image, where Figure 3 and Figure 4 They are respectively Figure 2 Enlarged views of the first and second selected areas, through... Figure 3 and Figure 4 It can be clearly seen that when performing the hollowing process, the hollowing points of the two adjacent layers above and below the area to be improved are staggered.

[0037] Figure 5 The image shown is a comparison between an image printed without using the printing method of this invention and an image printed using the printing method of this invention. (a) is an image printed without using the printing method of this invention, and (b) is an image printed using the printing method of this invention. It can be seen that in (a), some irregular light-colored contamination images are formed at the bottom of color blocks and lines, which affects the printing quality. In (b), the contamination areas are significantly reduced and the degree is much lower, and it has almost no impact on the printed image.

[0038] The present invention also relates to a printer, including a processor and a memory communicatively connected to the processor, the memory storing instructions which are executed by the processor to implement the above-described printing method. A printer employing this printing method produces images with improved burr-like texture, resulting in better print quality.

[0039] The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention. It should be noted that for those skilled in the art, several improvements and modifications can be made without departing from the technical principles of the present invention, and these improvements and modifications should also be considered within the scope of protection of the present invention.

Claims

1. A printing method, characterized in that: Before printing, identify the areas to be improved in the image to be printed and perform a cutout process on these areas; The method for identifying areas to be improved in an image to be printed is as follows: Step 1: Iterate through the pixels of the image to be printed and filter out the dark and light color blocks in the image to be printed; Step 2: For each dark color block, perform the following judgment: Determine whether a pixel in the current dark color block is adjacent to a light color block. If so, enter the region to be improved identification mode; otherwise, do not enter the region to be improved identification mode. Following the above judgment method, each pixel of all dark color blocks is traversed sequentially to obtain the region that has entered the recognition mode of the region to be improved, and then proceed to step 3. Step 3: Determine whether the length of the area entering the area to be improved identification mode has reached the preset length. If yes, the current area is the area to be improved; otherwise, the current area is not the area to be improved. When printing, when printing the area to be improved, ensure that the light-colored pixels in the area to be improved, which have been cut out, are not covered with toner.

2. The printing method according to claim 1, characterized in that: When performing the cutout process, stagger the cutout points of adjacent layers above and below the area to be improved.

3. The printing method according to claim 2, characterized in that: When performing the cutout process, the last row of the area to be improved will not be cutout.

4. The printing method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that: The specific process of hollowing out the area to be improved is as follows: hollow out the N rows above the junction of the area to be improved and the light-colored block, where N is a preset positive integer.

5. The printing method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that: The image to be printed is a black and white image. The dark color blocks are color blocks with a pixel value of 0, and the light color blocks are color blocks with a pixel value of 255.

6. A printer, comprising a processor and a memory communicatively connected to the processor, the memory storing instructions, characterized in that: The instructions are executed by the processor to implement the printing method as described in any one of claims 1 to 5.

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