Patent ID: 8139266

Claim:
A color printing control device that controls printing of a color image by overlaying achromatic color material including at least black with a plurality of chromatic color materials on a printing medium, comprising: a judgment part that judges whether or not a color material reduction printing mode is specified for printing with reduced consumption of color materials; and an output part that outputs color material reduction processed data generated by applying a color material reduction process to each pixel of bitmaps converted to color material colors to be used in printing, when it is judged by said judgment part that the color material reduction printing mode is specified, wherein said color material reduction process includes chroma conversion that reduces chroma and under-color removal/black generation that replaces at least a portion of achromatic components generated by overlaying of a plurality of color materials, and the color material reduction process includes determining a reference value based on densities of chromatic color material components of each pixel, and the chroma conversion reduces the chroma by decreasing densities of chromatic color material components larger than the reference value, and by increasing densities of chromatic color material components smaller than the reference value.