Apparatus and method for printing half-tone proof images.

摘要

A thermal printer is capable of printing proofs of images on a receiver with any of a plurality of selected half-tone dot patterns. The proof image is generated with a series of incremental dots. A plurality of the incremental dots are generated substantially simultaneously as a swath. The image is formed as a composite of a plurality of the swaths. The printer has the capability of printing with various swath widths. The swath width for a particular image is selected to preclude visible beating of the incremental dots against the selected half-tone dot pattern. Any image artifacts which are a product of interaction of the selected half-tone dot pattern and image elements (such as picket fences) are properly illustrated on the proof image. Image artifacts that are the product of interactions of the incremental dots and the half-tone dots are made invisible to the human eye. <IMAGE>