Color image picture forming process and apparatus which improves the quality of the black portions of the picture

摘要

Color image picture forming process and apparatus can provide a picture with smooth shadow portions without false contours. When a black component of a color picture data is smaller than a predetermined value, the black component is expressed by using the combination of cyan, magenta and yellow colorants. When the black component is larger than the predetermined value, it is expressed by alternately using the black colorant and the three colorant combination. In another embodiment, picture quality can be enhanced by using a black colorant having a higher density than the cyan, magenta and yellow colorants.