Abstract: An imaging system and corresponding method for manipulating, regulating or adjusting the fluid concentration of a toner cake to enhance the resultant image quality, while concomitantly enhancing the development and separation of image portions of the toner cake from non-image or background portions of the toner cake. The imaging system includes a toner cake applicator for applying toner cake onto a toner cake receiving member, a charging device disposed so as to form an electrostatic latent image in the toner cake, a separation subsystem positioned relative to the receiving member so as to selectively separate at least a portion of the imaged toner cake from the receiving member, and a fluid regulating device for regulating the amount of fluid in the toner cake.