Electrophotographic image forming apparatus and halftoning correction method thereof

A halftoning correction method for an electrophotographic image forming apparatus having a print engine to form an image onto a printable medium, the method comprising:

• storing a plurality of dot patterns representing print characteristics of the print engine;
• dividing halftoned print data, obtained from image data to be printed onto the printable medium, into data areas having the same size as the dot patterns;
• extracting an appropriate dot pattern from the stored dot patterns with respect to each of the divided data areas by comparing dots in the data areas to the dot patterns;
• and
• converting the data area to the appropriate dot pattern,
• wherein the extracting the dot pattern comprises extracting a dot pattern identical to the data areas, and
• the extracting the dot pattern comprises extracting a dot pattern in which the dots are disposed at a position adjacent to dots in the data areas, when there is no dot pattern in which the dots are disposed at the same position as in the data areas.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of instructions which, when executed by a processor of an image forming apparatus having a print engine to form an image onto a printable medium, cause the processor to perform the steps of:

• storing a plurality of dot patterns representing print characteristics of the print engine;
• dividing halftoned print data, obtained from image data to be formed onto the printable medium, into data areas having the same size as the dot patterns;
• extracting an appropriate dot pattern from the plurality of stored dot patterns for each data area, by comparing dots in the data areas to the dot patterns;
• converting a data area to the appropriate dot pattern;
• and
• outputting final print data comprising the converted data areas for printing onto the printable medium,
• wherein the extracting the dot pattern comprises extracting a dot pattern identical to the data areas, and
• the extracting the dot pattern comprises extracting a dot pattern in which the dots are disposed at a position adjacent to dots in the data areas, when there is no dot pattern in which the dots are disposed at the same position as in the data areas.