Described is a method for incremental printing with an inkjet swath printer by depositing multiple drops of an ink from a printhead in each column of an image, in each scanning pass of the printhead over a print medium by obtaining the image, analyzing the image to determine which drops of ink will define leading and trailing edges in each row of the image element with respect to a scanning direction, removing at least one drop of ink preceding the drop defining the trailing edges in each of the rows, removing at least one drop of ink after the drop defining the leading edges in each of the rows and depositing the remaining drops of the ink on the medium while passing the printhead over the media in the scanning direction. Also described is a method of printing with an inkjet printing system scanning over a print medium by providing a printhead having a supply of ink and a plurality of ink ejection chambers for ejecting ink onto the print medium, each of the ink ejection chambers depositing the ink onto a corresponding row, the ink ejection chambers ejecting ink drops in a range of frequencies between a base firing frequency and a maximum firing frequency, obtaining an image, analyzing the image to determine which drops of ink will define leading and trailing edges in each row of the image element with respect to a scanning direction, ejecting the drops of ink defining the leading trailing edges in each of the rows at an ejection frequency less than the maximum frequency and depositing the remaining drops of the ink on the medium while passing the printhead over the media in the scanning direction.