Patent 7177048 was granted and assigned to Eastman Kodak on February, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A number of lasers (402) used to image a bitmap file (630) of a halftone screen is comprised of generating a first bitmap file (630) for a first color. A first image (710) is printed with the first bitmap file for the first color with n lasers. A second image (720) is printed with the first bitmap file for the first color with n−1 lasers. An optimum number of lasers is selected for printing the first bitmap file based on the image with the least number of defects (700).