Importance

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Abstract

This invention provides an image processing apparatus capable of outputting a color image by reducing the information amount of each color component of the image by a method suited to the color component without deteriorating the quality of the image, and an image printing apparatus capable of printing an image without deteriorating the quality of the image, on the basis of received image data. Of color image data to be transmitted to the image printing apparatus (which uses, e.g., six colors Y, M, C, Bk, LC, and LM), the image processing apparatus quantizes colors (LC and LM) whose tone quality is important by a large number of gray levels (e.g., nine values), and does not compress these colors. The image processing apparatus quantizes colors (Y, M, C, and Bk) whose tone quality is not important by the number of gray levels (e.g., five values) by which the compression efficiency is improved, and then compresses these colors, thereby reducing the transmission data amount. The image printing apparatus prints the image of received image data by directly using uncompressed data and expanding compressed data.

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First Claim