Spatial processing in color reproduction

We consider the reproduction of color subject to material and neighborhood constraints. By "material constraints," we mean any constraints that are applied to the amount of ink, lights, voltages, and currents that are used in the generation of color. In the first instance we consider the problem of reproducing a target color constrained by maximum additive color signals, such as in the phosphorescence process in a cathode ray tube. In the second instance we consider the more difficult problem of reproducing color subject to constraints on the maximum primary color variations in a (spatial) neighborhood. We introduce the idea of adjacent color variance (ACV) and then attempt to reproduce colors subject to an upper bound on the ACV. An algorithm that is suitable for this task is the method of vector space projections (VSP). In order to use VSP for constrained color reproduction, we use a novel approach to linearize nonlinear CIE-Lab space constraints. Experimental results are furnished that demonstrate that using the ACV as a bound helps to reduce reproduction artifacts in a color image.