Hybrid printer for printing on non-porous media

1. A hybrid inkjet printer for printing on a non-porous medium, the inkjet printer comprising:

a data processing system provides a tone value of a half-tone pattern in a pre-determined function of an image-wise lay-down of an inkjet image;

toner printer for pre-coating a non-porous medium with toner resin particles in a half-tone pattern to create a patterned toner coated medium in accordance with the tone value;

inkjet ejectors for applying the image-wise lay-down of the inkjet image to said half-tone patterned toner coated medium to provide an image on said half-tone patterned toner coated medium; and

a fuser for fusing said image on said toner coated medium.

2. The hybrid inkjet printer as in claim 1 , wherein the toner resin particles are clear toner particles.

3. The hybrid inkjet printer as in claim 1 , wherein said toner resin particles have a size of between 6 μm and 21 μm.

4. The hybrid inkjet printer as in claim 1 , further comprising pre-heater adapted to pre-heat the non-porous medium prior to pre-coating by said toner printer.

5. The hybrid inkjet printer as in claim 1 , wherein the non-porous medium is pre-heated to approximately 120° C.

6. The hybrid inkjet printer as in claim 1 , wherein the data processing system detects image edges and boundaries between colors and modifies the tone value accordingly.

7. The hybrid inkjet printer as in claim 1 , wherein the inkjet image is rendered and imaged with more than 3 process colors.

8. The hybrid inkjet printer as in claim 7 further comprising black as a process color.

9. The hybrid inkjet printer as in claim 6 , wherein the data processing system directs a clear toner to be deposited in a continuous line.