Patent ID: 8870320

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving image data corresponding to at least a portion of an image, having a width in a first direction and a height in a second direction, to be printed, wherein the image data includes a first print region to be deposited on a first pass of at least one printhead of a plurality of printheads and a second print region to be deposited on a next pass of the at least one of the plurality of printheads subsequent to a relative movement of the at least installed one printhead and a print medium in the second direction the first print region and the second print region spatially overlapping in the second direction in an overlap zone; applying a first mask, including a first mask pattern, to image data corresponding to at least the overlap zone of the first print region, wherein the first mask pattern determines which pixels of a number of pixels in the overlap zone will be deposited by an end portion of the at least one printhead of a plurality of printheads on the first pass; and applying a second mask, including a second mask pattern, to image data corresponding to at least the overlap zone of the second print region, wherein the second mask pattern determines which pixels of a number of pixels in the overlap zone will be deposited by an opposing end portion of the at least one printhead of a plurality of printheads on a second pass, wherein each of the first and second mask patterns define a periodic variation in a dimension corresponding to the first direction, wherein the first and second mask patterns are arranged such that a superposition of the first print region and the second print region in the overlap zone corresponds to said portion of the image, and wherein first and second mask patterns corresponding to at least a second printhead are spatially separated in the dimension corresponding to the first direction in relation to first and second mask patterns corresponding to a first printhead.