Handwriting enhancement on carbon copied business forms based on HSV color space

Handwriting on carbon copied business forms, such as bank checks and receipts, is often too light to be recognizable. We propose a new method to automatically enhance the handwriting based on HSV color space. Handwriting is extracted using a series of simple image processing steps, such as color transform, thresholding and morphological operations, and then enhanced by adjusted histogram equalization of saturation. Experimental results showed that the enhanced handwriting is significantly clearer and more intelligible, while at the same time the rest of the business forms left untouched.