Patent ID: 8824014

Claim:
A method of operating a printer comprising: identifying a first plurality of coverage parameters for a first pixel of continuous tone (contone) image data, each coverage parameter corresponding to one color separation in a plurality of color separations; reducing each of the first plurality of coverage parameters by a first amount in response to a combination of at least two of the first plurality of coverage parameters being below a predetermined threshold; identifying a second plurality of coverage parameters for a second pixel of the contone image data, each coverage parameter in the second plurality of coverage parameters corresponding to one color separation in the plurality of color separations; reducing each of the second plurality of coverage parameters by a second amount, the second amount being less than the first amount, in response to a combination of the at least two of the second plurality of coverage parameters exceeding the predetermined threshold; generating half-tone image data corresponding to the first pixel and the second pixel; and operating a marking unit with reference to the half-tone image data to form marks corresponding to the first pixel and the second pixel on an image receiving surface.