Patent ID: 6867884

Claim:
A method comprising: placing dots in a first halftone dot pattern for threshold array values that are less than or equal to a first color pixel value, wherein the first color pixel value is a black color pixel value; defining a dot placement range within the threshold array values for a second color pixel value; and placing dots in a second halftone dot pattern for threshold array values that fall within the dot placement range, wherein the dot placement range has a lower bound as a function of the first color pixel value and an upper bound as a function of the sum of the first and second color pixel values, and wherein placing dots in the second halftone dot pattern includes placing dots in the second halftone dot pattern for threshold array values that are greater than or equal to the lower bound and less than or equal to the upper bound; and in the event the upper bound of the dot placement range exceeds a maximum threshold array value, assigning a wrap-around threshold array value as the upper bound, and placing dots in the second halftone dot pattern for threshold array values that are greater than or equal to the lower bound or less than or equal to the upper bound such that at least some of the dots in the second halftone dot pattern are placed at overlapping positions corresponding to at least some of the dots in the first halftone dot pattern.