a printing method is provided for a printer having a printhead with a plurality of print elements and capable of printing a binary pixel image . the method includes locating defective print elements , determining a camouflage area in the vicinity of pixels that would have to be printed with the defective print elements , and camouflaging the defective print elements by modifying image information in the camouflage area , wherein the camouflaging step is incorporated in a halftoning step in which error diffusion is used for creating the binary pixel image , and comprises a step of modifying an error propagation scheme for the camouflage area .