SYSTEM FOR DETECTING AND AVOIDING PRINTING OF SOLID BLACK AREAS

A method for processing a print page, by detecting if the page contains black areas exceeding a user-customizable coverage percentage, and providing a GUI for canceling, printing, and converting the print page. Printing presentation slides, for example, sometimes results in too many unattractive solid black sections, wasting toner or ink. When such a print page is detected, a user is alerted and allowed to convert the black areas, by inversion, dot-meshing, uniformly lightening page, lightening black regions, boundary preservation, and graduated lightening to lighten centers of solid black areas while leaving the contours intact. Methods also include specifying pixel blackness percentage based on grayscale and RGB values, previewing displaying contiguous black areas prominently, second detection step for contiguous areas, and processing PDL print objects by detecting and converting pen and brush colors.