Patent ID: 7859715

Claim:
A printing control device which carries out printing control corresponding to setting information representing the setting of whether to use uncolored ink on a printing device so designed to form dots on printing media by using colored ink containing coloring material and the uncolored ink containing no coloring material to print print images on the printing media, the printing control device comprising: a first printing control unit which, when the setting information is the information of setting for using the uncolored ink, refers to a color conversion table in which the correspondence between gradation data corresponding to a plurality of component colors and gradation data corresponding to the amounts of the colored ink and the uncolored ink consumed is defined, thereby color-converts input image data comprising gradation data corresponding to a plurality of the component colors into image data comprising gradation data corresponding to the amounts of the colored ink and the uncolored ink consumed, performs predetermined half tone processing on the image data obtained as the result of color conversion, thereby generates half tone data representing a state of formation of dots having plural sizes for the colored ink and the uncolored ink, and carries out such control as to cause the printing device to form dots having plural sizes of the colored ink and the uncolored ink and print the print image using the half tone data including data representing the state of formation of dots having plural sizes for the uncolored ink; and a second printing control unit which, when the setting information is the information of setting for avoiding the use of the uncolored ink, refers to the identical color conversion table which holds the gradation data corresponding to the amount of the uncolored ink consumed, thereby color-converts the input image data into image data comprising gradation data corresponding to the amounts of the colored ink and the uncolored ink consumed, performs the predetermined half tone processing only on the gradation data corresponding to the amounts of the colored ink consumed by the image data obtained as the result of color conversion comprising gradation data corresponding to the amounts of the colored ink and the uncolored ink consumed, thereby generates half tone data representing a state of formation of dots having plural sizes for only the colored ink, and carries out such control as to cause the printing device to form dots having plural sizes of only the colored ink and print the print image using the half tone data representing the state of formation of dots having plural sizes for only the colored ink.