Patent ID: 7920294

Claim:
A method, to be executed on a computer, of generating a plurality of dither patterns, said method comprising: a first determining step of determining an arrangement of a plurality of different threshold values in a first dither pattern that is used for generating quantized data for performing printing of a first color; and a second determining step of determining an arrangement of a plurality of different threshold values in a second dither pattern that is used for generating quantized data for performing printing of a second color, wherein said first determining step includes a step of determining an arrangement of a predetermined number of identical threshold values in a first candidate position pattern of a plurality of candidate positions in which the threshold values are to be positioned, the first candidate position pattern corresponding to the first dither pattern, based on a second candidate position pattern of a plurality of candidate positions in which the threshold values are to be positioned, the second candidate position pattern corresponding to the second dither pattern, wherein said second determining step includes a step of determining an arrangement of a predetermined number of identical threshold values in the second candidate position pattern, based on the first candidate position pattern, and wherein said first and second determining steps respectively include a step of repeating said step of determining the arrangement of the predetermined number of identical threshold values, sequentially for each different threshold value of the plurality of different threshold values, and in said repeating step, the first and second candidate position patterns corresponding to the candidate positions in which the threshold values have been positioned, are omitted from being the next first and second candidate position patterns, respectively.