COLOR HALFTONING BASED ON NEUGEBAUER PRIMARY AREA COVERAGE AND NOVEL COLOR HALFTONING ALGORITHM FOR INK SAVINGS JiangWanling 2019 <p>A halftoning method with Neugebauer Primary Area Coverage direct binary search (NPAC-DBS) is developed. With the optimized human visual system (HVS) model, we are able obtain homogeneous and smooth halftone colored image. The halftoning is based on separating the colored image represented in Neugebauer Primary in three channels based on human visual system, with swap-only DBS, we arrange the dots to bring the error metric to its minimum and the optimized halftone image is obtained. The separation of chrominance HVS filters between red-green and blue-yellow channels allows us to represent HVS more accurately. Color halftone images generated using this method and method of using traditional screening methods are compared.</p> <p>In order to speed up the halftone process with similar quality of NPAC-DBS, we developed PARAWACS screens for color halftoning. PARAWACS screen is designed level by level using DBS. With PARAWACS screen, we can create halftone using simple pixel by pixel comparison with the merit of DBS. We further optimized the screen to achieve the best quality.</p> <p>Next, a novel halftoning method that we call Ink-Saving, Single-Frequency, Single-Angle, Multi-Drop (IS-SF-SA-MD) halftoning is introduced. The application target for our algorithm is high-volume production ink-jet printing in which the user will value a reduction in ink usage. Unlike commercial offset printing in which four-colorant printing is achieved by rotating a single screen to four different angles, our method uses a single frequency screen at a single angle, and it depends on accurate registration between colorant planes to minimize dot-overlap especially between the black (K) colorant and the other colorants (C, M, and Y). To increase the number of gray levels for each colorant, we exploit the multidrop capabilities of the target writing system. We also use the hybrid screening method to yield improved halftone texture in the highlights and shadows. The proposed method can help preserve ink significantly.</p>