PRODUCING POSTSCRIPT BITMAP IMAGES WITH VARYING DEGREES OF TRANSPARANCY

• Main Author: SMITH GLENN K
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 22.11.2007
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; PHYSICS; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECOGNITION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS

Embodiments herein include a method of combining a graphic image with other data to be printed, such as text or other graphics. One embodiment receives image data and document data and applies a mask to the image data to produce an image snippet. The mask adjusts a transparency of the image data in the image snippet by eliminating pixels from the image data. The method combines the document data and the image snippet into a page description language (PDL) file (PostScript file) using a print driver. One feature of the embodiments herein is that the image snippet is combined with the document data only by the print driver, and the image does not need to be combined downstream using an interpreter. After creating the PDL file, then the method processes the page description language file through an interpreter to produce raster data and prints the raster data on a media sheet using a printer.