OPTIMIZING PRINTING SPEED AND MANAGING PRINTED SHEET EJECTION BASED ON IMAGE DENSITY AND METHOD OF DETERMINING DENSITY

摘要

The printing operation of an ink jet printer is controlled basedon the density of the image to be printed. Using the density, a requireddrying time for each swath of printed matter is determined based on theimage density. Also using the density, a maximum print frequency of firingthe ink jets is determined. The density is determined by filtering storedprint data by dividing the print data into blocks and determining amaximum number of ON pixels in a block. Such filtering enables clusters ofON pixels to be detected thus providing a more accurate determination ofthe density.