Apparatus and method for managing memory in a printing system

A printing system for producing prints, with each print including an image represented by image data, is provided. The printing system includes a memory for storing and buffering the image data of a selected print and an image output terminal, communicating with the memory, for printing the image of the selected print on a substrate. The printing system further includes marking software, operatively associated with the image output terminal, for determining a value for the maximum amount of memory to be used in printing selected ones of the prints, and a resource manager, communicating with the marking software and the memory, for managing the memory. In practice, the resource manager receives the value from the marking software and the substrate is fed to the image output terminal when the resource manager determines that the value corresponds with a selected amount of available memory space and that an additional predetermined condition is satisfied.