Automatic detection of black and white pages in a color document stream

摘要

An approach is provided for identifying black and white pages in a color document stream. This approach may be utilized in digital printing systems. This approach examines a small portion of the color data for a page to identify whether the color data is indicative of the page being a black and white page or a full color page. This approach also examines the relative sizes of compressed color separations for the pages. Pages that are determined to be black and white pages may be printed in a black and white mode, whereas full color pages may be printed in a full color page mode.