Currently, a trend of society is changing from conventional small-variety mass production to large-variety small-quantity production. In the production field of publications represented by books, pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers, too, large-variety small-quantity production using a business-purpose digital printer has begun to receive attention, after going through a period of small-variety mass production using a high-speed offset rotary press.
As one example of a digital printer, an inkjet type printer that prints by jetting ink onto a paper by heat or pressure, is known. Moreover, in such a printer, a printer comprising a plurality of print heads corresponding to a plurality of colors (for example, cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K)), is known.
In the above-mentioned inkjet type printer, a carriage system in which a plurality of printing color portions (for example, the previously described four color portions of C, M, Y, and K) are disposed gathered into one in a shuttle type print head, and printing is performed on a sheet, is known. Said system is suitable for depiction of a fine image. Moreover, as another system, a single-pass system in which, with respect to a continuous paper moving in one direction, a plurality of single color printing-dedicated print heads are disposed so as to cover a paper width in a paper width direction thereby forming a print head group, and furthermore, a plurality of printing color portions (for example, the previously described four color portions of C, M, Y, and K) of the above-mentioned single color printing-dedicated print head groups are disposed in a moving direction of the continuous paper, is known. Said system is suitable for high-speed printing.
When printing image data in the above-mentioned business-purpose digital printer, a data amount to be processed is extremely large compared to a data amount in general household and office printing, hence a long time is required for processing. Therefore, conventionally, various kinds of image processing such as so-called rasterization processing (RIP: Raster Image Processing), four color separation processing, tonal steps conversion processing, and rearrangement processing of data corresponding to placement of ink head, were performed prior to printing.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds