Patent ID: 8432581

Claim:
An image processing apparatus for controlling a formation of dots in a recording element configured to perform scanning on a sheet-like recording medium to form dots of different colors on a surface of the recording medium, the image processing apparatus comprising: at least one processor coupled via a bus to a memory, the processor being programmed to control one or more of: a constraint information generation unit configured to generate, for each scanning of the recording element, constraint information indicating a constraint for preventing the dots of at least two of the different colors from being positioned mutually close individually for each color; and a dot pattern generation unit configured to perform N-valuing processing (N is an integer equal to or greater than 2) on input image data, based on the constraint information generated by the constraint information generation unit, to generate a dot pattern individually for each color for forming an image based on the image data on the surface of the recording medium, wherein the constraint information generation unit generates the constraint information in such a way as to make the constraint applied to a same scanning operation performed by the recording element stronger than the constraint applied to different scanning operations performed by the recording element.