Image processing system, image capturing device, image processing terminal, image processing data storage terminal, program for the device, program for the terminal, data structure of image data, method of processing image, and method of generating image data

Abstract

The invention provides an image processing system which is suitable to carry out image processing in excellent accuracy while removing influence due to characteristics depending on the type difference and which facilitates wide and flexible adaptation over image capturing devices. A digital camera includes an image pick-up sensor unit which receives images as data, a URL memory unit which stores a URL to indicate an acquisition site of image processing data, and a URL adding unit which adds the URL in the URL memory unit to the image data. The printer includes an RAW data read unit which reads out the image data, a URL acquisition unit which acquires the URL added to the image data, an image processing data acquisition unit which acquires the image processing data from the image processing data storage server based on the acquired URL, and an image data processing unit to process the image data based on the acquired image processing data.

1 . An image processing terminal communicatively connectable to an image processing data storage terminal, comprising:
 an image data input device to input image data;   an image processing data acquisition device to acquire image processing data from the image processing data storage terminal based on access information associated with the image data input by the image data input device; and   an image data processing device to process the image data input by the image data input device based on the image processing data acquired by the image processing data acquisition device.   
   
   
       2 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , further communicatively connectable to a plurality of the image processing data storage terminals,
 the image processing data acquisition device accessing the image processing data storage terminal specified by the access information acquired by the access information acquisition device, among the plurality of image processing data storage terminals, and acquiring the image processing data from the image processing data storage terminal.   
   
   
       3 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the image processing data being image correcting data representing correcting values to carry out a calculation on the image data in order to correct an image constructed on the basis of the image data. 
   
   
       4 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the image processing data being an image processing module representing program data which corrects an image constructed on the basis of the image data. 
   
   
       5 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the access information being stored in a separate file from the image data. 
   
   
       6 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the access information being encrypted and being superposed on the image data. 
   
   
       7 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the image data being associated with capturing information representing a capturing mode or a capturing environment of the image of an image data. 
   
   
       8 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the image data being associated with the access information corresponding to a capturing mode of an image constructed on the basis of the image data. 
   
   
       9 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , further comprising a capturing mode designating device to designate a capturing mode, and
 an access information acquisition device acquiring the access information corresponding to the capturing mode designated by the capturing mode designating device among a plurality of access information associated with the image data input by the image data input device.   
   
   
       10 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the image data being associated with the access information corresponding to an output device to output the image constructed on the basis of the image data. 
   
   
       11 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , further comprising an output device designating device to designate an output device, and
 an access information acquisition device acquiring the access information associated with an output device designated by an output device designating device among a plurality of access information associated with the image data input by the image data input device.   
   
   
       12 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the access information being a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). 
   
   
       13 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the image data input by the image data input device being RAW data. 
   
   
       14 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the image data input by the image data input device being compressed image data. 
   
   
       15 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , further comprising an image processing data restoring device to restore compressed image processing data acquired by the image processing data acquisition device using a restoring scheme corresponding to a compressing scheme, and
 the image processing device processing the image data input by the image data input device based on the image processing data restored by the image processing data restoring device.   
   
   
       16 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the image data processing device generating CMYK data from the image data input by the image data input device. 
   
   
       17 . The image processing terminal according to  claim 1 , the image processing terminal being a printer to carry out printing based on the image data processed by the image data processing device. 
   
   
       18 . A computer-readable medium encoded with computer-executable instructions according to  claim 1 , comprising:
 instructions for executing process implemented by the image data input device to input the image data, the image processing data acquisition device to acquire the image processing data from the image processing data storage terminal based on the access information associated with the image data by the image data input device, and the image data processing device to process the image data input by the image data input device based on the image processing data acquired by the image processing data acquisition device.   
   
   
       19 . An image processing method, comprising:
 inputting image data into an image processing terminal communicatively connectable to an image processing data storage terminal;   acquiring image processing data from the image processing terminal communicatively connectable to an image processing data storage terminal;   acquiring image processing data from the image processing data storage terminal based on access information associated with the image data in the image processing terminal; and   processing the image data based on the image processing data in the image processing terminal.