Patent ID: 9280115
Filing Date: 2016-03-08
CPC Classification: G03G

Claim Text:
1. An image forming apparatus comprising: a counting unit configured to count the number of pixels at each tone level in a halftone image corresponding to an input image; a determination unit configured to determine a halftone region in the halftone image; an acquisition unit configured to acquire tone characteristic information of an output density of the image forming apparatus; a correction unit configured to obtain a density in a region to be formed by using a developing material corresponding to pixels in the halftone region from information of the halftone region and the number of pixels at each of the tone levels included in the halftone region and correct the density in accordance with the tone characteristic information; a first prediction unit configured to predict a consumption amount of the developing material by using the density corrected by said correction unit; and an accumulation unit configured to obtain an accumulated value of densities in the halftone image from the number of pixels at each tone level acquired by said counting unit, wherein said first prediction unit predicts a consumption amount of the developing material from the accumulated value of densities obtained by said accumulation unit if the accumulated value of densities obtained by said accumulation unit is larger than a predetermined threshold.