Patent ID: 8228557

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: an allowable-amount-of-special-toner determining unit configured to determine an allowable amount of special toner from a total adhesion amount of toner of four colors including cyan, magenta, yellow, and black on an input image, the total adhesion amount of toner of four colors being calculated in formation of an image; a normal print-out unit configured to perform a normal print-out process in which the toner of the four colors including cyan, magenta, yellow and black and the special toner are adhered and fused; a two-path print-out unit configured to perform a two-path print-out process in which the special toner is adhered and fused after the toner of the four colors including cyan, magenta, yellow and black is adhered and fused; a grouping unit configured to group pixels for which printing with the special toner is set into a first pixel group and a second pixel group based on the allowable amount of special toner determined by the allowable-amount-of-special-toner determining unit; and a print-out-method selecting unit configured to select the normal print-out unit or the two-path print-out unit based on a percentage of the number of pixels grouped into the first pixel group by the grouping unit to the number of pixels for which printing with the special toner is set.