An image forming system includes an image forming apparatus and a server. The image forming apparatus transmits to the server image data representing an image. The image is read by the reading device from the recording medium on which the print device prints the image, in response to an instruction to print at the origin of the print area. The server acquires, from the image data transmitted from the image forming apparatus, a printing-complete reference position, as a position where the recording-medium origin is made a reference, in a location printed on the recording medium by the image forming apparatus in response to an instruction to execute printing at the print-area origin, and acquires the displacement as a difference between the acquired printing-complete reference position and the print reference position stored in the storage device.

A raster image processor (RIP) system is used in a printing system to process a variety of different jobs. A front end receives the jobs and determines the job type. The job types include a print job, a preview job, and an estimation job. Depending on the type of job, the front end configures the RIPs within RIP system accordingly to process the job. The RIPs may process the job in parallel, with a high performance RIP processing the first page of the job. If the job is not processed in parallel, then the front end assigns the job to a very high performance RIP. The front end also assigns the preview job to a preview RIP and the estimation job to an estimation RIP. The front end configures RIPs as needed.

An information processing apparatus edits print data including cut line layer data used in die cutting of a printed medium, and includes one or more processors and/or circuitry which function as: an obtaining unit configured to obtain print region information including at least a paper feeding amount in inter-page printing from a printing apparatus configured to perform the printing on the print medium and obtain operation characteristic information of a die cutting apparatus from the die cutting apparatus; and a determination unit configured to determine the cut line layer data based on the print region information and the operation characteristic information.

A printing apparatus includes white and gray text determination units and a setting unit to charge a color printing fee where a pixel for which a color printing flag is set is present in an input image, and to charge a black-and-white printing fee where a pixel for which the color printing flag is set is not present in an input image. The white determination unit determines whether a focused pixel in the input image is a white pixel. The gray text determination unit determines whether the focused pixel constitutes a gray text. Where the focused pixel is determined to constitute a gray text or be a white pixel, the setting unit sets a black-and-white printing flag for the focused pixel and, where the focused pixel is determined to neither constitute a gray text nor be a white pixel, the color printing flag is set for the focused pixel.

An extractor extracts a gloss control value unused in first gloss control plane data. A conversion table generator generates a conversion table defining a special color density value corresponding to the extracted gloss control value. A second surface effect conversion table generator generates a second surface effect conversion table obtained by registering, in the first surface effect conversion table, definition information for the special color image specified by the special color density value in the conversion table in association with the gloss control values in the conversion table. A second gloss control plane data generator generates second gloss control plane data in which the special color density value in the clear plane data is converted into the corresponding gloss control value in the conversion table. A clear toner plane generator generates the clear toner plane data based on the second surface effect conversion table and third gloss control plane data.

Systems and methods for reducing toner usage. A print job is received into a print engine. The print engine comprises a processor, and the print job comprises an image. A halftone screen is applied to the pixels of continuous image data for the image. The processor produces a threshold array of pixel values based on the halftone screen. The processor generates a mask based on the halftone screen for each color plane of the image. The processor applies the mask to the threshold array, creating a modified threshold array. The modified threshold array corresponds to relatively reduced toner usage for rendering the image.

In a printing apparatus, when an image printed based on image data of an n-th print job as an n-th print target among designated two or more print jobs is an n-th image, and an image printed based on image data of a (n+1)-th print job as a (n+1)-th print target among the designated two or more print jobs is a (n+1)-th image, n-th post-processing setting information and (n+1)-th post-processing setting information are compared to determine whether or not setting of the post-processing needs to be changed, and when the setting of the post-processing does not need to be changed, print setting is changed so as not to print information based on post-processing setting information set to be printed at a position between the n-th image and the (n+1)-th image on the medium.