Printing systems and methods are presented for image background and neutral adjustment of luminance-chrominance pixel values corresponding to a scanned image, in which white and black pixels are identified which have luminance values close to whitepoint and blackpoint values for the image, and which have chrominance values close to the chrominance neutral point. The chrominance values of these identified white and black pixels are selectively reduced based at least partially on proximity to the chrominance neutral point and chrominance of one or more neighboring pixels.