An image forming apparatus includes rendering units that refer to rendering data composing partial regions within a page as input data, generates image data by merging the rendered results, and uses the image data as output data. Each rendering unit holds a rendering position of processing that is currently executed by itself, and detects a rendering position of processing that is currently executed by another rendering unit. When rendering for a partial region that is currently processed is completed, a control unit detects a rendering position held in another rendering unit, and changes allotment of a partial region serving as the next rendering target of its rendering unit so as to reduce the difference between time periods until its rendering unit and another rendering unit complete rendering for the next partial region.

A printing apparatus capable of arranging and printing a plurality of duplicates of an input image on a same side of a single sheet, includes a printing unit configured to print an image on a sheet using a color material, and a controller configured to act as: a changing unit configured to change, to a white image, a portion of an image that is to be printed by the printing unit, based on a region provided at each edge of the sheet and to which the color material is not to be applied, and a control unit configured to control the changing unit to change, to a white pixel, a neighborhood of a border between the plurality of duplicates arranged on the same side of the single sheet, based on a size of the region to which the color material is not to be applied.

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 processing apparatus includes a division unit and a generation unit. The division unit divides an image represented by image forming data into multiple division regions. The generation unit generates a piece of bitmap image data by causing a hardware processing unit to process a piece of division-region data selected from among pieces of division-region data of the multiple division regions in descending order of processing loads of image processing performed when pieces of bitmap image data are generated from the respective pieces of division-region data, the processing loads being obtained for the respective division regions, and by causing a CPU to perform software processing on a piece of division-region data selected from among the pieces of division-region data in ascending order of the processing loads.

Provided is a printing method including: performing a plurality of processing cycles, in which a print image is printed on a substrate in each of the processing cycles, in which the print image used in each of the processing cycles is formed of a plurality of divided images, the plurality of divided images includes a first divided image printed at a first position of the substrate and a second divided image printed at a second position of the substrate, and the first divided image and the second divided image are generated in different processing cycles.