A method and apparatus are provided for improving the quality of a printed image by first automatically determining the gamma (&ggr;) of an image, and then adjusting the &ggr; of the printer, if necessary, to correspond to that of the image. Thus, if an image has a &ggr; of 2, the &ggr; of the printer will be adjusted from approximately 1 (its normal &ggr;), to approximately 2 (i.e., corresponding to that of the image). To detect the &ggr; difference problem, the invention detects a shift in saturated colors towards higher digital counts. Then, through mapping of the color space from three dimensions to two dimensions and cross-plotting values of saturation and luminance, a cumulative histogram plot of luminance is developed. The histogram displays the 256 luminance bands, arranged in one of eight bands, and normalized from zero to one. A threshold value is established for the cumulative histogram plot and the value of the cumulative histogram is compared to the threshold. If the threshold is exceeded in most of the bands, the &ggr; for the image matches that of the printer. However, if the threshold is not exceeded, a false &ggr; image may be indicated, for example. In this case, the &ggr; of the printer may be automatically adjusted (e.g., increased from approximately 1 to approximately 2). Thus, the printed image will then be of the same quality as the original image.