Printer, print method and print system

Abstract

A printer is permitted to obtain printed matter of high picture quality from print data transferred in the state changed into 1 bit for the purpose of shortening data transfer time. A multi-value conversion unit ( 23 ) converts CMYK respective 1 bit binary data from an expansion unit ( 22 ) into multi-valued data. The multi-value conversion unit sets values that a remarked pixel should take, which corresponds to circumstances of surrounding pixels, in a table where two gradation data ( 0, 1 ) of the remarked pixel and two gradation data of pixels around the remarked pixel, e.g., upper and lower, left and right and oblique eight pixels are assigned to respective digits of binary number of eight figures are taken as parameter to make reference to this table to thereby convert two gradation data into multi-valued data.

1 - 22 . (canceled)  
   
   
       23 . A host system for processing a color image for transmission to a printer comprising: 
 means for converting a CMYK-based multi-gradation per pixel-color image to an image of two gradations per pixel-color,    means for transmitting the image to a printer, further comprising a means for compressing the two-gradation image via an image compression algorithm before transmitting the image to a printer.    
   
   
       24 . A host system for processing a color image for transmission to a printer comprising: 
 means for converting an RGB color space image to a CMYK color space image,    means for converting a CMYK-based multi-gradation per pixel-color image to an image of two gradations per pixel-color,    means for transmitting the image to a printer, further comprising a means for compressing the two-gradation image via an image compression algorithm before transmitting the image to a printer.    
   
   
       25 . A printer for receiving and printing an encoded image comprising: 
 means for receiving a compressed, two gradation image from a host system, means for decompressing the image via an image decompression algorithm, means for converting the two-gradation per pixel-color image to a multi-gradation per pixel-color image, and means for printing the image based on the multi-gradation per pixel-color image data.