Abstract: A technique is provided for reducing inking of image and text areas in an ink jet printing system. Initially, a shaded image/text multi-bit mask is provided. Half-toning, such as error diffusion, is applied to dither the shaded multi-bit mask to a one-bit mask. An image/text bitmap is loaded before applying a logical AND to the one-bit mask and the bitmap to generate a reduced ink image or text character. A character outline is created from the character bitmap. Finally, a logical OR is applied to the reduced ink character and the character outline to generate a reduced ink character with defined edges. This technique maintains fine detail in the image area as well as fine detail in small text characters.