Patent ID: 7611219

Claim:
A printing control method of generating print data to be supplied to a print unit to print, the print unit forming dots on a print medium by ejecting ink droplets of at least one type of colored ink containing a color material and a quality-enhancing ink for enhancing quality of a printed material, the printing control method comprising: a dot data-generating step of generating dot data representing a state of dot formation at each pixel in a printed image to reproduce an image represented by a given image data, by formation of dots in respective pixels with the at least one colored ink and the quality-enhancing ink available in the print unit, wherein the dot data-generating step includes a processing mode configured to make a quality-enhancing ink dot-recording rate for pixels belonging to a peripheral area lower than the quality-enhancing ink dot-recording rate for pixels belonging to a center area with regard to at least one identical pixel value of the image data, wherein the quality-enhancing ink dot-recording rate is a dot-recording rate of the quality-enhancing ink; the peripheral area is set at end portions of the printing medium; the center area is set in a central portion of the printing medium; and wherein the dot data-generating step further includes a color conversion step of converting color in each pixel of the image data into a tone value, the tone value being for expressing the color with the at least one colored ink and the quality-enhancing ink available in the print unit, and a color-quantizing step of generating the dot data representing a state of dot formation at each pixel, in response to the converted tone value with regard to each pixel of the image data, wherein the color conversion step includes a processing mode configured to make a quality-enhancing ink tone value for pixels belonging to the peripheral area lower than the quality-enhancing ink tone value for pixels belonging to the center area with regard to at least one identical pixel value of the image data, and wherein the quality-enhancing ink tone value is the tone value of the quality-enhancing ink.