PURPOSE: To shorten an input operation time by reading the polychromatic chart and performing color separation, comparing separated colors with stored color sample data and deciding the most similar color, and using a primary color, background color, and its secondary mixed color as the color sample data.
CONSTITUTION: The polychromatic chart 202 mounted on a drum scanning mechanism 201 is scanned through a color separating camera 203 and a color separation signal (a) into, for example, red, green, and blue; and color sample data (b) on the representative value of the signal (a) which is stored previously in a color sample data storage part 205 and the signal (a) are outputted to a color decision arithmetic part 204. Further, the arithmetic part 204 calculates the Euclidean distance between both data (a) and (b) for every picture element and decides that the data (a) belongs to the data (b) where a minimum value is obtained to output color decision data (c), which is converted into final data by a color decision data converting part 206 while unnecessary color decision data is converted into a base color. In this case, the secondary color obtained by mixing the signal (a) with the base color of paper is stored as the data (b).
SUGANO YOSHIMITSU
KODERA HIROAKI
