Color image forming apparatus

Claim 1

A color image forming apparatus comprising: image inputting means for reading a color document image and generating RGB data representative of said document image; L*a*b* converting means for converting said RGB data to L*a*b* data; image processing means for executing image processing with said L*a*b* data; RGB converting means for converting data output from said image processing means to RGB data; YMCK processing means for converting said RGB data to YMCK data; image outputting means for outputting the color document image by sequentially superposing color materials on a paper in response to said YMCK data; recognizing means for recognizing L*a*b* data outside a color rendering range of said image outputting means; storing means storing data representative of a color rendering range particular to said image inputting means and said color rendering range available with said image outputting means, and for supplying said recognizing means with said data; said image processing means including color correction means for performing color correction only on said L*a*b* data outside the color rendering range of said image outputting means to produce corrected L*a*b* image data defining a color within the color rendering range of said image outputting means and outputting the corrected L*a*b* data to said RGB converting means; and a selecting mechanism for selecting one of said RGB data generated by said image inputting means and said RGB data output from said RGB converting means based on a signal from said recognizing means, and providing the selected RGB data to said YMCK processing means.