Method of printing with an ink jet printer using an enhanced horizontal resolution

A method of printing an image on a print medium with ink using an ink jet printer. A printhead has a plurality of ink emitting orifices for jetting ink onto the print medium, with the ink emitting orifices being spaced apart in the advance direction a common distance. The printhead is movable in a direction transverse to the advance direction in incremental steps, with the incremental steps having a minimum step distance. An image area has a plurality of rows and columns of pixel locations. The columns of pixel locations have an advance pixel resolution which is dependent upon the common distance. The rows of pixel locations have a transverse pixel resolution which is dependent upon the minimum step distance. A threshold matrix is defined with a plurality of rows and columns of cells, with each cell corresponding to one of the pixel locations in the image area. A threshold value is assigned to each cell within the threshold matrix. A transition matrix is defined having a same number of rows as the threshold matrix and a greater number of columns than the threshold matrix. Each column of the transition matrix has cells with threshold values which correspond to one of the columns of the threshold matrix, and is disposed adjacent to at least one other column with cells of identically assigned threshold values. The ink is jetted onto the print medium, dependent upon the color value of the ink and the threshold values of the transition matrix.