Patent ID: 8130389

Claim:
A method for configuring an image path of an image processing apparatus, the image processing apparatus including an image input terminal for inputting documents into image data and an image output terminal for outputting documents for a specific type of output device, the image processing apparatus comprising a plurality of image processing elements configured to process and output image data, the method comprising: selecting one of a plurality of output modes for the specific type of output device using a selection device associated with the image processing apparatus; based on the selected output mode, selectively choosing an image path among a plurality of image processing elements between the image input terminal and the image output terminal using a controller, each of the plurality of image processing elements comprising an input and output, and wherein each of a plurality of image paths is a series of routing connections between the inputs and outputs of the image processing elements, each image path among the plurality of processing elements corresponding to one of the plurality of output modes for the specific type of output device; inputting a document with the image input terminal into image data; processing the image data of the document with the image processing elements in the selected image path, and outputting a document from the specific type of output device using the image output terminal based on the processed image data.