Method and apparatus for printing halftones with a gray level printer with contour suppression and/or minimization of moire patterns

An apparatus for reproducing an original image, comprising:

• a scanner which scans and digitizes the original image into pixels;
• a controller coupled to the scanner to receive the digitized original image, and which produces a first signal corresponding to a gray level halftoned representation of the digitized original image;
• a printer coupled to the controller to receive said first signal and which produces a gray level halftoned reproduction of the original image;
• wherein the controller includes means for operating the printer in a mode wherein contour suppression is applied to every pixel of said original image and wherein in said mode each pixel has an input pixel gray value and is assigned an output gray level and wherein the contour suppression includes assigning for each pixel having an input pixel gray value that is between first and second threshold levels a probability of having the first output gray level and a probability of having the second output gray level, said first and second threshold values being selected from a set of threshold values representing possible threshold values assigned for a pixel matrix location corresponding to a position of the pixel in a halftone matrix cell and wherein the number of members of the set corresponds to the number of output gray values.