Patent ID: 7990555
Filing Date: 2011-08-02
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. A printing system having an image supply device and a printer, for printing an image with the printer based on image data supplied from the image supply device, wherein: the image supply device comprises: a print setting unit constructed to set print conditions for a designated image file; a job transmission unit constructed to transmit a print job for instructing print of the designated image file; a determination unit constructed to determine whether or not image data of the designated image file is to be converted, based on the print conditions set by the print setting unit; a conversion unit constructed to execute conversion of the image data of the designated image file according to the print conditions set by the print setting unit, wherein the conversion includes at least one of resizing, color conversion and rotation of the image data; a file information transmission unit constructed to transmit file information of the designated image file, in response to a file information request for requesting file information of the designated image file using a file ID of the image file, wherein the file information represents a file size of the image file, and wherein the file information request is received from the printer and requests file information of the designated image file instructed in the print job but not the image data of the image file; and a file transmission unit constructed to transmit the image data of the designated image file, in response to an image file request for requesting the image data of the designated image file using the file ID of the designated image file instructed in the print job, wherein the image file request is received from the printer, wherein, if the determination unit determines that the image data of the designated image file is not to be converted, in response to the file information request for requesting file information of the designated image file using the file ID of the designated image file, the file information transmission unit transmits the file information of the designated image file to the printer, and, in response to the image file request for requesting the image data of the designated image file using the file ID of the designated image file, the file transmission unit transmits the image data of the designated image file to the printer, and wherein, if the determination unit determines that the image data of the designated image file is to be converted, in response to the file information request for requesting the file information of the designated image file, the conversion unit starts conversion of the image data of the designated image file requested by the file information request according to the print conditions set by the print setting unit, and the file information transmission unit transmits file information of a converted image file whose image data has been converted by the conversion unit, but does not transmit the file information of the designated image file, and, in response to the image file request for requesting the image data of the designated image file, the file transmission unit transmits the image data of the converted image file, but does not transmit the image data of the designated image file, and wherein the printer comprises: a file information request unit constructed to transmit the file information request for requesting the file information of the designated image file using the file ID of the designated image file instructed in the print job from the image supply device; a file request unit constructed to transmit the file request for requesting the image data of the designated image file using the file ID of the designated image file instructed in the print job, after receiving the file information transmitted by the file information transmission unit in response to the file information request; and a print unit constructed to print an image based on the image data transmitted by said file transmission unit in response to the image file request.