Patent ID: 8315532

Claim:
A method of reducing background development in a multi-color electrophotographic printer, comprising: receiving a job to be printed onto a receiver, the job including a plurality of separations, respective boundary data defining a respective image area of each separation and a respective non-image area of each separation, and respective image data defining a respective visible image to be produced in the respective image area of each separation; the printer providing a respective development station for each separation, each development station including: a rotatable photoreceptor for transferring the visible image onto the image area of the moving receiver, wherein the visible image comprises toner and corresponds to the image data of the respective separation; and a rotatable development member arranged with respect to the photoreceptor to provide toner to the photoreceptor; calculating a respective non-developing zone of the each development member corresponding to the respective non-image area of each separation, and a respective developing zone of the respective development member corresponding to the respective image area of each separation; automatically supplying developer to the development members; and automatically removing developer from the respective non-developing zone of each development member while the development member rotates, whereby background development is reduced in the non-image area of each separation.