Control of toner deposition in gray pixel halftone systems and color printing

Abstract

In a printer, a controller keeps track of the imager's operation. The original image is transferred into a continuous tone image by using a tone reproduction curve. That signal is encoded into gray pixel data by a halftoner. The pixel data contains the pixel location and the desired darkness of gray, i.e., amount of toner deposited. An imager uses the pixel data to generate the final halftoned image in a printer. A controller generates a feedback signal based on the printer's operation and the quality of the final halftoned image. The imager uses the feedback signal to modify the encoded gray pixel data in order to adjust the final halftoned image. The original coding of the image into gray pixel data is generic and does not depend on the characteristics of the printer being used. This invention reduces the computation of gray pixel data and allows the imager to be separate from the apparatus generating the gray pixel data.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.