Patent ID: 8570340

Claim:
A method for demoting color data associated with at least one band of a print page, wherein the band comprises a plurality of objects nested therein, the method comprising: marking an object as demotable, if the color data associated with the object is demotable; marking the at least one band as demotable, if all the plurality of objects nested in the at least one band are demotable; demoting the color data of the at least one marked band and the marked objects from an original color space to a demoted color space, wherein the original color space has a first dimension and a second dimension and the demoted color space has the first dimension but not the second dimension, and wherein demoting the color data includes removing color data in the second dimension of the original color space while keeping color data in the first dimension of the original color space; identifying a rasterizable band that is not demoted, the rasterizable band having a subset of the demoted objects nested therein; promoting the color data of the demoted objects nested in the rasterizable band from the demoted color space back to the original color space, wherein promoting the color data includes adding color data in the second dimension; and rasterizing the color data of the rasterizable band in the promoted form.