Light source drive control device, image forming apparatus, light source drive control method, and computer program product

A light source drive control method comprising:

• generating line-thinned image data having been subjected to line thinning processing for thinning an edge pixel in image data by a first pixel width;
• setting a second pixel width of an edge in the line-thinned image data such that a ratio between the first pixel width and the second pixel width is constant;
• generating intensity information including a first intensity at which a pixel not included in the set second pixel width is exposed and a second intensity at which a pixel included in the second pixel width is exposed and which is higher than the first intensity;
• generating strong exposure data for generating a light source modulation signal for controlling light emission of a light source according to the line-thinned image data and a drive current switching signal based on the intensity information;
• switching drive current data for setting the first intensity or the second intensity and to be applied to a light source based on the drive current switching signal and outputting the drive current data;
• driving a light source based on the light source modulation signal and the drive current data;
• and
• controlling printing of the line-thinned image data, wherein
• the setting sets the ratio between the first pixel width and the second pixel width according to a proportion of the second intensity to the first intensity such that, when the second intensity is 2 times the first intensity, the ratio between the first pixel width and the second pixel width is 1 to 1.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium containing an information processing program, the program causing a computer of a light source drive control device to perform:

• generating line-thinned image data having been subjected to line thinning processing for thinning an edge pixel in image data by a first pixel width;
• setting a second pixel width of an edge in the line-thinned image data such that a ratio between the first pixel width and the second pixel width is constant;
• generating intensity information including a first intensity at which a pixel not included in the set second pixel width is exposed and a second intensity at which a pixel included in the second pixel width is exposed and which is higher than the first intensity;
• generating strong exposure data for generating a light source modulation signal for controlling light emission of a light source according to the line-thinned image data and a drive current switching signal based on the intensity information;
• switching drive current data for setting the first intensity or the second intensity and to be applied to a light source based on the drive current switching signal and outputting the drive current data;
• and
• driving a light source based on the light source modulation signal and the drive current data;
• and
• controlling printing of the line-thinned image data, wherein
• the setting sets the ratio between the first pixel width and the second pixel width according to a proportion of the second intensity to the First intensity such that, when the second intensity is 2 times the first intensity, the ratio between the first pixel width and the second pixel width is 1 to 1.