Patent ID: 7517039

Claim:
A printing system for printing an image on a medium comprising: a printhead mounted for movement relative to the medium on which print material is to be deposited, said printhead including a plurality of nozzles from which said print material is fired; a multi-speed drive connected to scan said printhead across said medium in a series of passes, said multi-speed drive being configured for selective operations at a first scan velocity and a second scan velocity that is greater than said first scan velocity; and a printmask controller configured to provide a composite pixel masking pattern and individual pixel masking patterns which are based on the composite pixel masking pattern, where the individual pixel masking patterns establish sequencing of activations of said nozzles during said passes and impose a limitation on a firing frequency of activations for each said nozzle, wherein said printmask controller is further configured to provide at least two modes of operation, including a standard mode in which the plurality of nozzles are fired based on the composite pixel masking pattern during a given scan of the printhead as the multi-speed drive is driven at the first scan velocity, and a speed-enhancement mode in which the individual pixel masking patterns restrict firing of the nozzles on the medium to prevent the firing of the nozzles in adjacent pixels of the composite pixel masking pattern in a direction of a given scan as the multi-speed drive is driven at the second scan velocity, successive passes of the nozzles over the medium in the speed-enhancement mode depositing print material for all pixels of the image within the composite pixel masking pattern.