Patent ID: 8594543

Claim:
A multi-belt printing system comprising: a first and second printing station, each including a rotating intermediate transfer belt having image panels, a marking unit configured to dispose marking material on the image panels, and a transfer point at which the marking material is transferred to substrate media from the image panels; a rotating media transport belt having a plurality of media panels adapted to support the substrate media thereon, the media transport belt configured to transport the media panels past each transfer point to facilitate transfer of the marking material to the substrate media from the image panels, the image panels of the first and second printing stations periodically coinciding with at least one of the media panels at the transfer point associated with the image panels to form panel combinations; and a controller to control the marking unit of at least one of the first and second printing stations to adjust placement of the marking material individually for each of the panel combinations to compensate for combined registration errors associated with each of the panel combinations, wherein at least one test pattern is printed for each of the panel combinations to detect combined registration errors corresponding to each of the panel combinations, a set of image placement correction factors being generated based on the at least one test pattern printed for each of the panel combinations, the set of image placement correction factors including at least one image correction factor for each of the panel combinations, and wherein the controller applies the set of image placement correction factors for the panel combinations to control the marking unit to adjust the placement of the marking material.