Patent ID: 7347525

Claim:
A method for compensating for streak defects in an image formed using an image forming device that forms the image on a receiving material that is translated through the image forming device along a process direction, comprising: printing a compensation pattern usable to determine a difference in gray level between an actual gray level value and an intended gray level value at a cross-process-direction image-forming device pixel location in the image, comprising: printing a plurality of gray level portions, each gray level portion having a gray level that is different from the other gray level portions and extending along the cross-process-direction, the plurality of gray level portions arranged along the process direction, printing a first set of alignment marks adjacent to a first end of the plurality of gray level portions, the first set of alignment marks having a plurality of rows of marks extending along the cross-process-direction, a first row of the first set of alignment marks and a second row of the first set of alignment marks being adjacent to each other without a gray level portion there-between, and printing a second set of alignment marks adjacent to a second end of the plurality of gray level portions, the second set of alignment marks having a plurality of rows of marks extending along the cross-process-direction; scanning the compensation pattern to generate a set of scanned image data, the scanned image data defining an image value for each of a plurality of cross-process direction scanned image pixel locations; analyzing the scanned image data based on the cross-process direction scanned image pixel locations of the marks of the first and second sets of alignment marks to determine at least one actual gray level value for at least one of the plurality of gray level portions for at least one cross-process-direction image-forming device pixel location; generating, for each analyzed cross-process-direction image-forming device pixel location, for each analyzed gray level portion of that analyzed cross-process-direction image-forming device pixel location, a compensation parameter based on the determined actual gray level value for that analyzed gray level portion and the intended gray level value for that analyzed gray level portion.