Patent attributes
This invention is a printing control method of generating print data to be supplied to a print unit which is capable of forming dots on a print medium by ejecting at least one type of colored ink containing a color material and a quality-enhancing ink for enhancing quality of a printed material. The printing control method comprises a color conversion step of converting pixel values into multiple gradation data of each ink, the pixel values representing color of each pixel of given image data, the multiple gradation data of each ink expressing the color of the pixel by using the colored ink and the quality-enhancing ink available in the print unit and a gradation-reduction step of generating at least part of colored dot data and transparent dot data by ordered dither method. The gradation-reduction step includes a step of generating the transparent dot data in succession with specific colored dot data using a quality-enhancing ink threshold value which has a value generated according to a value read from a specific dither matrix used for generating the specific colored dot data for a specific colored ink.
