a method of camouflaging defective print elements in a printer having a printhead with print elements , and each pixel of the image is assigned to a print element , and image information of a pixel that is assigned to a defective print element shifts to a nearby pixel position capable of printing with a non - defective print element . shifting the image information includes the steps of a ) encoding the image information to be printed as a multi - level pixel matrix in which one of a predetermined set of pixel values is assigned to each pixel and at least one of the pixel values is a conditional pixel value encoding a print instruction that depends upon whether or not a neighbouring pixel corresponds to a defective print element , b ) determining defective print elements of the printer , and c ) executing the print instruction .