Patent 7847975 was granted and assigned to Xerox on December, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method of converting black to composite/process black in a digital color print engine. A lightness adjustment is employed for converting input image (O, O, O, Kin) to Ko and initial values of Co, Mo, Yo are set equal to Ko and then converted to C1, M1, Y1, K1 by GCR strategy. Values of Cout, Mout, Yout, Kout are determined by Gray Balance Adjustment for values of C1, M1, Y1, K1 and inputted to the color print engine. The user may disable the conversion to composite black and print black ink/tones if desired. The user may also input different parameters for Lightness Adjustment, Gray Component Replacement and Gray Balance Adjustment.