Method of operating a multiple component electronic imaging system

A method of operating an electronic imaging system (20) as a distributed processor network is provided for a system that includes multiple imaging components such as digital cameras (22), printers (34), etc., wherein each component is connected to an intelligence module (24-36) having a microcontroller (58) and memory (62). In the method, the intelligence modules (24-36) are interconnected by way of a data interface (28-37) to form a system network. Next, different image processing steps are assigned to different ones of the intelligence modules (24-36). Image data entered and stored within the imaging system (20) is divided into a plurality of data groups, each of which preferably corresponds to a portion of an image. Finally, the data groups are serially entered through each of the intelligence modules (24-36) such that a specific sequence of image processing steps are conducted on each data group until the processing of a specific image is completed. The method efficiently utilizes all the microcontroller capability present in the network intelligence modules (24-36), thereby minimizing the processing time required to render images.