Patent ID: 7729006

Claim:
A color printing accelerator module for use with a host computer of a host-based color printing system, wherein the host computer is adapted to communicate image data from a first I/O port of the host computer to a corresponding I/O port of a printer, the image data communicated from the host computer to the printer including raster image data, the color printing accelerator module comprising: an I/O interface configured to communicate with a second I/O interface of the host computer, wherein the color printing accelerator module functions as a peripheral device solely of the host computer through the I/O interface; image processing logic including print quality processing logic in communication with the I/O interface, the image processing logic including print quality processing logic configured to perform print quality processing on first color space image data converted by the host computer from image data in a second color space, where the image data in the second color space is received at the I/O interface from the second I/O interface of the host computer; and wherein image data processed by the image processing logic is communicated to the I/O interface for transmission to the second I/O interface of the host computer for use by the host computer in generating the raster image data that is provided from the first I/O port of the host computer to the corresponding port of the printer.