Abstract: A method of halftoning a sample value from an intensity range including the steps of providing threshold arrays having threshold values from distinct ranges, one of which is the same as the intensity range, selecting the one with the same range as the intensity range and using the selected threshold array to halftone the sample value. Embodiments may include the following features. The threshold arrays are a first one having a first threshold value range and a second one having a second threshold value range that has more levels than does the first threshold value range. The first threshold array is built by scaling each value in the second threshold array down to the range of the first threshold array. The scaling is done by dividing by 257 and rounding up to the next whole number. The first threshold array has a threshold value range of zero to 255 and the second threshold array has a threshold value range of zero to 65535 or zero to 4095.

Abstract: A method building a tile of pixels usable by a marking routine in a raster output device to mark an output device pixel according to a sample value. The method includes the steps of receiving the sample value in a rendering process; deriving, from the sample value, a base value and a fractional tile of pixels; and building the pixels of the tile by adding the base value to the corresponding pixels of the fractional tile. The fractional tile may have a bit depth of one. The invention also features building a chunky color tile by deriving, from a sample color, one component base value for each color component; obtaining a component fractional tile for each color component of the sample color; and building each pixel in the chunky color tile as the composition of the sum of the component base values and the component fractional tile pixel values for the corresponding color components and pixel position. The component fractional tiles can be stored in a packed representation.