When the trial period for the printer driver of the trial version has elapsed while the license for the printer driver has not been purchased, the normal printing process continues to be enabled, and the density for tint block printing is set to a density at which a latent-image portion appears. Thus, based on the printing results obtained by a printer, the user can observe the same image as the image on which a tint block image is actually printed. As a result, the user understands that unrelated characters "COPY" are superimposed on the original image, and further experiences the effects of the tint block printing function. Further, the user is encouraged to purchase a license for another software product having a tint block printing function.