A method for controlling color bleed in relation to a system-invoked halftone color-image process which involves and includes the practice of error diffusion. The proposed method involves (a) selecting a location in the system which is downstream therein relative to where error diffusion takes place, (b) at that location, performing diffusion-accumulated error calculation, (c) at another location in the system which is downstream from where error calculation takes place, applying error filtering to define a numerically weighted pixel-neighbor distribution pattern for such calculated accumulated error, where the numbers associated with that pattern add to a defined distribution-weight totality number, and (d) then preparing, for use in a next-pixel error-diffusion event, a chosen distribution-weight totality number which is less than the defined distribution-weight totality number.