1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and method capable of adding predetermined information to an input image, and to a storage medium storing program codes realizing such a method.
2. Related Background Art
Techniques are known which add additional image (called a xe2x80x9cwatermarkxe2x80x9d or an xe2x80x9celectronic watermarkxe2x80x9d) such as specific characters or marks to an input image (original image) to be printed.
Data representative of a watermark is stored in a specific storage unit. Each time an application supplies an image to be printed, a watermark is added to this image upon printing.
The data representative of an original image is constituted of respective drawing data corresponding to a plurality of editing processes (such as a paste process of object images). In printing the original image, the final set of print image is formed by sequentially using each drawing data to sequentially superpose one object image upon another.
The following two methods may be used when a watermark is added to an original image to print them out.
With one method, a watermark is superposed upon the original image (of a plurality of object images generated from drawing data) (this method is called front addition). With this method, while it is advantageous that the water mark is printed to be always visible, it is disadvantageous that the original image under the watermark is not easy to be visualized.
With the other method, a watermark is placed under the original image (of a plurality of object images generated from drawing data) (this method is called back addition). With this method, while it is advantageous that the original image is printed to be always visible, it is disadvantageous that the watermark under the original image may partially become not easy to be visualized.
When a watermark is added to an original image in printing, the data of the watermark is also stored in the storage unit, similar to each drawing data of the original image. Data of both the original image and water mark is sequentially read from the storage unit and developed into a bit map of a final print image on one paint memory. This bit map image is output to a print unit to print it out.
Since there are two methods of adding a watermark, an image editing application which performs only a back addition method is associated with the following problem. Consider for example the case wherein an image editing application performs an edit process of painting out the whole page and thereafter produce an image of characters or graphics superposed upon the painted-out page. In such a case, if one print image is produced by sequentially using the drawing data of each edit process, the watermark placed earliest is made to disappear from the image by the later image edit process and the final print image is formed in this state without the watermark.
Even though a watermark is already added to an original image and this image is later edited by a large degree, there is a possibility that the image without the watermark is printed.
It is an object of the present invention to solve all or each of the above-described problems.
It is another object of the present invention to prevent information added to an image from being destroyed by an image edit process.
It is still another object of the invention to reliably add a watermark to an image developed upon a drawing command.
The invention has been made under the above circumstances and it is an object of the invention to reliably prevent a watermark from being made to disappear by editing an original image already added with a watermark.
In order to solve the above problems, an embodiment of the invention provides an image processing apparatus which comprises: an input unit (corresponding to a data analyzing portion 301 of an embodiment) for inputting a plurality set of drawing data representing one frame image; a generating unit (corresponding to a record production portion 302 of the embodiment) for generating first intermediate language data (corresponding to a record in the embodiment) representing a watermark to be added to the one frame image and generating second intermediate language data (corresponding to a record in the embodiment) by analyzing the drawing data input from the input unit; and a producing unit (corresponding to a record processing portion) for producing final print image data on the basis of the first and second intermediate language data, wherein the generating unit regenerates again (corresponding to Steps 104 and 105 in FIG. 1) the first intermediate language data representing the watermark on the basis of the contents of the second intermediate language data produced by the producing unit.
It is another object of the invention to provide an image processing apparatus and method with a novel function.