Patent ID: 8764149

Claim:
A method for registration of an inkjet in a printhead comprising: moving an image receiving surface in a process direction past a printhead and an optical sensor; ejecting a plurality of drops from a first inkjet in the printhead at a first predetermined rate onto the image receiving surface, the first rate of ejecting the ink drops from the first inkjet being less than a maximum ejection rate of the first inkjet; generating with the optical sensor a plurality of image data samples of the image receiving surface including a plurality of portions of the image receiving surface that received the plurality of drops ejected from the first inkjet, the plurality of image data samples being generated at a second predetermined rate, the second predetermined rate being less than the maximum ejection rate of the first inkjet to enable at least one image data sample between two image data samples depicting an ink drop to depict a portion of the image receiving surface that does not have an ink drop; identifying a center of the plurality of ink drops on the image receiving surface in the process direction with reference to the plurality of image data samples; identifying a process direction offset between the identified center of the plurality of drops ejected from the first inkjet and a center identified with reference to another plurality of image data samples generated for another portion of the image receiving surface having a plurality of ink drops that were ejected by a second inkjet; and storing in a memory in association with the first inkjet an image data offset value corresponding to the identified offset.