Method and apparatus for providing halftoning processing of color images by means of a neural network

摘要

The invention eliminates the drawbacks of the conventional dither and error diffusion methods used as halftoning techniques, namely the blurring of edges with the dither method and the appearance of peculiar patterns with the error diffusion method. To this end, an image processing apparatus is provided with an input unit for entering a plurality of color image signals, an image processing unit for subjecting the plurality of entered color image signals to processing based upon the algorithm of a cellular neural network, and a comparison decision unit for deciding output color data based upon results of processing by the image processing unit. Since input multivalued color image data based upon the algorithm of a neural network are converted to output color image data, it is possible to obtain a high-quality output color image that is faithful to the input color image.