Patent ID: 8861033

Claim:
A printing system comprising a host device and a printer that executes printing using dot data indicating whether or not to form a dot for each pixel, the host device including: a pseudo-pixel generation unit that generates a pseudo-pixel by grouping together a plurality of pixels; an edge strength classification unit that classifies the pseudo-pixel into one of a plurality of segments according to an edge strength of the pseudo-pixel; a lower limit strength selection unit that selects a lower limit edge strength based on a result of the classification performed by the edge strength classification unit; a host halftone processing unit that generates the dot data based on pixels contained in a pseudo-pixel having an edge strength greater than or equal to the lower limit edge strength selected by the lower limit strength selection unit; an assignment unit that assigns, to a pseudo-pixel that is not to be processed by the host halftone processing unit, a representative value reflecting a color specification value of each pixel contained in that pseudo-pixel, a bit value of the representative value per the pseudo-pixel being greater than a bit value of the dot data for each of the pixels, and a transfer unit that transfers, to the printer, the representative value assigned by the assignment unit and the dot data generated by the host halftone processing unit, and the printer including: a printer halftone processing unit that generates the dot data by executing a halftone process on the representative value transferred from the host device; and a printing unit that executes printing based on the dot data generated by the printer halftone processing unit and the dot data transferred from the host device.