A method and a system for digital direct imaging, an image generating method and an electronic device are provided. The method for digital direct imaging includes: obtaining a first image of a first format; converting the first image into a second image of a second format, wherein the second image includes a contour description; generating a correction parameter according to at least one mark on a substrate; correcting the second image according to the contour description and the correction parameter; and performing a rasterization operation on the corrected second image and imaging the second image processed by the rasterization operation on the substrate by an exposure device.

System and methods for processing and printing print jobs with a single sheet job model job model. In one embodiment, a print controller includes an interface that receives a print job, and a processing unit that initiates a processing task for a group of pages in the print job. The print controller also includes a sheet controller that establishes a single sheet job model in memory for the processing task, and that iteratively inserts sheet properties of a set of pages of the group into the single sheet job model, provides the single sheet job model with the sheet properties to the processing task, and erases the sheet properties from the single sheet job model.

Print jobs call for printing multiple logical pages on the same sheet, using base colorants and an extension colorant, and call for a different number of printing passes of the extension colorant for different logical pages. A first bitmap is created, and a first printing pass prints the first bitmap. The first bitmap is then modified to leave only the extension colorant plane, to create a modified bitmap; and a second printing pass prints the modified bitmap on the same sheet. The modified bitmap is additionally modified by removing printing pixels for the logical pages that do not contain an instruction to perform an additional printing pass of the extension colorant; and an additional printing pass prints the modified bitmap. These printing passes are repeated until no more of the logical pages contain the instruction to perform an additional printing pass of the extension colorant.

An object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus capable of combining a group element so that a color intended by a user is output ultimately even in the case where flattening is performed on the way of the processing performed on the group.

A calculating unit calculates, as a reference number N of scans, a sum by adding 1 to a product M of the number m of scans in a main-scanning direction and the number n of scans in a sub-scanning direction. An assigning unit assigns, as a count of scans indicating a scan order, an integer 1 or more and the product M or more to each pixel of a unit image. A changing unit changes the count of scans of some pixels to which a first scan is assigned to an N-th scan. The generating unit generates print data, in which nozzle groups from a nozzle group arranged on a downstream end in the sub-scanning direction to a nozzle group arranged on an upstream end are sequentially assigned to pixels from the pixels to which the first scan is assigned to the pixels to which the N-th scan is assigned.

A data structure includes entries corresponding to a plurality of tiles that form part of an image, where a given entry of the entries includes color information for a given tile of the plurality of tiles. Image data in the given tile is created using the color information of the given entry, where creating the image data in the given tile using the color information of the given entry is performed without using input image data for the given tile.

An image forming apparatus includes a display section, an operation acceptance section, a printing section, an external terminal, a display control section, a readout control section, an interpreter section, and a control section. The readout control section reads metadata on a print job from a USB memory connected to the external terminal. The display control section uses a result of analysis of the metadata in the interpreter section to allow the display section to display a display prompting a user to specify a print target area in document data generated as the print job. The readout control section uses the result of analysis to read from the USB memory a portion of data corresponding to the specified print target area. The control section allows the printing section to perform print processing based on the read portion of data corresponding to the print target area.

An image forming apparatus includes a display section, an operation acceptance section, a printing section, an external terminal, a display control section, a readout control section, an interpreter section, and a control section. The readout control section reads metadata on a print job from a USB memory connected to the external terminal. The display control section uses a result of analysis of the metadata in the interpreter section to allow the display section to display a display prompting a user to specify a print target area in document data generated as the print job. The readout control section uses the result of analysis to read from the USB memory a portion of data corresponding to the specified print target area. The control section allows the printing section to perform print processing based on the read portion of data corresponding to the print target area.

A calculating unit calculates, as a reference number N of scans, a sum by adding 1 to a product M of the number m of scans in a main-scanning direction and the number n of scans in a sub-scanning direction. An assigning unit assigns, as a count of scans indicating a scan order, an integer 1 or more and the product M or more to each pixel of a unit image. A changing unit changes the count of scans of some pixels to which a first scan is assigned to an N-th scan. The generating unit generates print data, in which nozzle groups from a nozzle group arranged on a downstream end in the sub-scanning direction to a nozzle group arranged on an upstream end are sequentially assigned to pixels from the pixels to which the first scan is assigned to the pixels to which the N-th scan is assigned.

A method for generating bitmap image data of a page includes acquiring print data of a page including compressed images, and performing rendering of bands included in the page based on the print data to generate the bitmap image data. The performing of the rendering performs rendering at least two of the bands concurrently. The performing of the rendering includes decompressing the compressed images, and using the decompressed images for corresponding bands of the bands to generate the bitmap image data. The decompressing decompresses, into a same memory area in a decompression buffer, at least two compressed images used for different bands, so that one of the two compressed images is decompressed into the same memory area and another of the two compressed images is decompressed, after rendering of a last band for which the one of the two compressed images is lastly used is finished, into the same memory area.