Patent ID: 8873106

Claim:
A method for enabling halftoning of a color image based on its color separation content, the color image including a plurality of color separations, each color separation representing a distinct colorant of an image printing device, the method being implemented in a computer system comprising one or more processors configured to execute one or more computer program modules, the method comprising: receiving a color image being described as a plurality of input pixels and having a plurality of pages; processing the received color image to generate image data, the image data comprising a plurality of continuous tone planes; analyzing the image data to determine whether one or more pixels of the plurality of input pixels are separation overlay pixels, the separation overlay pixels having colorant requests from multiple continuous tone planes; and halftoning the pages of the color image to produce an output color image based on the following: if a page of the color image includes more than a threshold amount of separation overlay pixels and if a property of the separation overlay pixels exceeds a predetermined threshold value, then a first halftoning model of the image printing device is used to halftone that page of the color image, else a second halftoning model is used to halftone that page of the color image, the second halftoning model comprising an adjustment of a property of a halftone dot in the output color image.