Edge enhancement depletion technique for over-sized ink drops to achieve high resolution X/Y axes addressability in injet printing

A swath printing system where a scanning carriage carries printheads along a carriage scan axis over media which is periodically advanced through a print zone in a media advance direction, comprising:

• a plurality of printheads providing different ink colours for application of different colour ink drops to a given output on the media, each printhead including an active nozzle swath width and a given nozzle resolution based on the distance separating adjacent nozzles as measured along the media advance direction;
• media advance means for moving the media in the media advance direction through the print zone a predetermined distance after completion of a printing swath by the carriage in the direction of the scan axis;
• and
• depletion means operable to remove portions of an edge of a figure in order to minimize changes to the size of the figure to be printed, including a depletion mask which narrows the vertical dimension of a figure by a distance of at least one addressable pixel;
• and
• wherein said depletion mask vertically shifts only one horizontal edge of a figure by a distance of at least one addressable pixel.

A swath printing system where a scanning carriage carries printheads along a carriage scan axis over media which is periodically advanced through a print zone in a media advance direction, comprising:

• a plurality of printheads providing different ink colours for application of different colour ink drops to a given output on the media, each printhead including an active nozzle swath width and a given nozzle resolution based on the distance separating adjacent nozzles as measured along the media advance direction;
• media advance means for moving the media in the media advance direction through the print zone a predetermined distance after completion of a printing swath by the carriage in the direction of the scan axis;
• and
• depletion means operable to remove portions of an edge of a figure in order to minimize changes to the size of the figure to be printed, including a depletion mask which narrows the horizontal dimension of a figure by a distance of at least one addressable pixel.

A method of controlling external dimensions of a figure printed with large ink drops which extend outside the boundaries of individual pixels on an addressable pixel grid by an inkjet printer, comprising

• detecting a horizontal edge of the figure;
• shifting vertically certain selected pixels which form such horizontal edge in order to narrow the outer dimensions of the figure,
• detecting one of the right or left edges of the figure;
• and
• shifting horizontally certain selected pixels which form such right or left edges in order to narrow the outer dimensions of the figure.