Color Smoothing

The Color Smoothing image enhancement averages and evens out the background color of an image. It can only be applied to color images. Color smoothing will help optimize the image for processing. It reduces the number of colors used in an image, which creates a cleaner image with a smaller file size. Data recognition processes perform better on a solid background. Color Smoothing also optimizes the image for use with the Color Removal image enhancement.

To Use Color Smoothing

1. In the Session Configuration Pane, select the stage of processing where you want to use Color Removal.
2. In the Tasks Pane, select Color Removal. In the bottom right of the Tasks Pane, you can select Wizard to display more information about each property or Skip Wizard to display the properties all at once without additional information.
3. Page Range: When configuring an image enhancement in Page Processing or Storage Processing, you will be prompted to specify a page range. In other stages, default settings will automatically be applied.
4. Region Selection: Specify the region of the image that will establish the average background color. The image's overall background color will average to this color. The foreground (i.e., the image's actual content, such as text) should not be in the region specified. You can convert the entire page or a selected region. To define a region, select Region and either drag and resize the zone on the Display Pane or specify coordinates in the Tasks Pane.  
5. Background Color Variation: Specify the amount (as a percentage) that a pixel's color can vary from the average background color and still be converted.
6. Optional: To preview how this enhancement will affect scanned images and OCRed or extracted text, test processes. For the best results, add a custom sample image before testing. Adjust and test until you are satisfied with the results.