Conventionally, when counterfeit judgment processing by using electronic
watermark is performed in a printer driver, a printing speed is lowered
due to heavy load. To solve the problem, in the printer driver, first, it
is judged whether or not image data indicated by input print information
is in high quality. If the image data is in high quality, it is judged
whether or not the image data represents a particular image. If the image
data represents the particular image, predetermined processing is
performed on the image data. This minimizes the execution of counterfeit
judgment processing and reduces the load.