Printing system employing printer-independent print quality characteristics
View Patent ↗A printing system for use in printing objects of any of a plurality of different object types includes a printer; and a printer control device with a user interface having a first option for associating printer-independent print-quality characteristics with a selected object type to be printed by the printer. A printer-independent print-quality characteristic is an instruction associated with an element, such as object type, in an electronic page which indicates printer-independent features that are preferentially emphasized when printing the element. Examples of printer-independent print quality characteristics include “make sharp edges”, “reduce mottle”, “distinguish neighboring colors”, “reduce moiré”, “distinguish tone and edges”, “maximum tone depth”, “perceptual colors” and “compress without loss of detail”. The printing system may also include a device for retrieving printer-independent print-quality characteristics associated with a document to be printed by the printer and for associating printer-dependent imaging actions with the printer-independent print-quality characteristics.
1. A printing system, comprising:
a printer; and
a printer control device for retrieving printer-independent print-quality characteristics associated with image elements in a document to be printed by said printer and for associating printer-dependent imaging actions with the printer-independent print-quality characteristics;
wherein a printer-independent print-quality characteristic comprises instructions for indicating a feature of an image element that is to be preserved during rendering without specifying any printer-specific imaging actions needed to achieve the feature; and
wherein printer-dependent imaging actions associated with the printer-independent print-quality characteristic comprise specific imaging actions taken by the printer to achieve the feature of the image element to be preserved during rendering.
2. The printing system of claim 1 , further comprising a user interface having a control for associating printer-independent print-quality characteristics with printer-dependent imaging actions.
3. The printing system of claim 1 , further comprising a user interface having a first control for invoking an option of automatically associating printer-independent print-quality characteristics with printer-dependent imaging actions in accordance with a set of predetermined associations and a second control for manually associating printer-independent print-quality characteristics with printer-dependent imaging actions.
4. The printing system of claim 3 , further comprising a third control for defining a custom printer-independent print-quality characteristic and for associating printer-dependent imaging actions with said custom printer-independent print-quality characteristic.
5. The printing system of claim 3 , further comprising a third control for saving a set of associations.
6. The printing system of claim 5 , further comprising a fourth control for loading said saved set of associations.
7. The printing system of claim 5 , further comprising a fifth control for selecting a default configuration of associations.
8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the printer-independent print-quality characteristics comprise at least one of “make sharp edges”, “reduce mottle”, “distinguish neighboring colors”, “reduce moiré”, “distinguish tone and edges”, “maximum tone depth”, “perceptual colors”, “contour”, “no abutting corners”, “increase moiré”, “uniform gloss”, “distinctness” and “compress without loss of detail”.
9. A method for controlling the quality of printing, comprising:
providing a list of printer-dependent imaging actions;
providing a list of printer-independent print-quality characteristics, wherein a printer-independent print-quality characteristic comprises instructions for indicating a feature of an image element that is to be preserved during rendering without specifying any printer-specific imaging actions needed to achieve the feature;
selecting a printer-independent print-quality characteristic from the list of printer-independent print-quality characteristics; and
associating at least one printer-dependent imaging action with the selected printer-independent print-quality characteristic, wherein printer-dependent imaging actions associated with the printer-independent print-quality characteristic comprise specific imaging actions taken by the printer to achieve the feature of the image element to be preserved during rendering.
10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
defining a custom printer-independent print-quality characteristic;
adding the custom printer-independent print-quality characteristic to the list of printer-independent print-quality characteristics; and
associating at least one printer-dependent imaging action with said custom printer-independent print-quality characteristic.
11. The method of claim 9 , further comprising saving a selected configuration of associations.
12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising loading a saved selected configuration of associations.
13. The method of claim 9 , further comprising providing a default configuration of associations.
14. The method of claim 9 , wherein the printer-independent print-quality characteristics comprise at least one of “make sharp edges”, “reduce mottle”, “distinguish neighboring colors”, “reduce moiré”, “distinguish tone and edges”, “maximum tone depth”, “perceptual colors”, “contour”, “no abutting corners”, “increase moiré”, “uniform gloss”, “distinctness” and “compress without loss of detail”.