Abstract: In a method of cleaning an ejection face by supplying a head liquid on a surface (ejection face) of an inkjet head provided with ink ejection outlets, and then by performing wiping operations thereon, an ink residue on the ejection face is efficiently and surely removed from the ejection face to achieve a sufficient cleaning thereon. For this purpose, a first wiping operation is first performed such that a wiper (9A) is relatively largely bent, and slidingly contacts the ejection face at an abdomen thereof to efficiently perform the application, stirring and mixing of the head liquid. Then, a second wiping operation is performed such that an edge portion of the top end of a wiper (9B) slidingly contacts the surface to efficiently scrape the mixture of the head liquid and the ink residue.

Abstract: An inkjet printing apparatus, an inkjet printing system and an inkjet printing method are provided in order to correct a print density at a joint (overlapped portion) of nozzle arrays of a print head. The print density at the joint (overlapped portion) of the nozzle arrays is corrected based on a positional deviation between two adjacent nozzle arrays of the print head.

Abstract: A recording apparatus has: a recording head having a liquid chamber and nozzles; a tank that stores the liquid which is supplied to the recording head; a liquid supply path that supplies the liquid from the tank to the liquid chamber; a supply pump provided on the liquid supply path; a liquid return path that returns the liquid from the liquid chamber to the tank; a return pump provided on the liquid return path; and a control unit that controls the supply pump and the return pump, wherein when the liquid is initially filled into the liquid chamber, the control unit drives the return pump so as to set the liquid chamber into a negative pressure state and subsequently drives the supply pump. The recording apparatus which can fill the liquid at a high speed without raising a pressure of a flow path can be provided.

Abstract: To relate to a head liquid which is supplied to efficiently remove ink residues and the like which are attached to the surface of an inkjet head provided with ejection openings through which an ink containing a color material is ejected. In a case where a nonvolatile solvent such as glycerin is used as the head liquid, the nonvolatile solvent absorbs moisture, and thereby an extremely large change in mass is exhibited. As a result, the above supply amount is varied. To solve the problem, it was found that the previous mixing of water with the nonvolatile solvent can provide a smaller change in mass than that in a case where the nonvolatile solvent by itself is caused to absorb moisture. Accordingly, a mixture prepared by mixing the nonvolatile solvent and water in an appropriate predetermined ratio is used as a head liquid.

Abstract: When an image is formed by imparting aqueous ink discharged from a recording head onto a recording medium P, water content contained in the aqueous ink is evaporated by a heater to suppress curl generated in the recording medium P after the image formation. The aqueous ink contains at least 15% by weight of curl control agent, and the viscosity of the aqueous ink is lower than 4 cp. The viscosity is increased to suppress the curl generation by evaporating the water content contained in the aqueous ink imparted on the recording medium P after the image formation.

Abstract: The present invention provides an ink jet printing apparatus that can substantially prevent possible variation in the color of an image on a print medium discharged from an ink jet printing apparatus. A drying condition is determined under which the color of the image varies until the color of the image becomes a target one having a color difference ?E of at most 3 from a stable color with substantially no temporal variation. The image is dried according to the drying condition. The print medium is then discharged from the printing apparatus. This enables variation in the color of the image on the print medium discharged from the printing apparatus to be prevented from exceeding 3 in terms of color difference ?E. As a result, a user can be prevented from perceiving variation in color.

Abstract: There is provided an inkjet printing apparatus which are used to obtain a printed matter having a small degree of glossiness unevenness and a flat surface. The apparatus is the inkjet printing apparatus for forming an image on a print medium by relatively scanning a first ejection unit for ejecting a first ink and a second ejection unit for ejecting a second ink to the print medium. The apparatus includes forming unit configured to form the image with the first and second inks on the print medium in each of a first printing mode for completing an image by scanning the first ejection unit one time and a second printing mode for completing an image by scanning the second ejection unit plural times. A gloss value of a solid image with the second ink is greater than a gloss value of a solid image with the first ink.

Abstract: An image recording apparatus (2000) is disclosed, which includes forming elements (2002) for forming an image, a memory (2006) indicating relative desirability of utilizing the forming elements (2002) for forming the image, and processing unit (2008) for computing image recording signals using input image signals (2012) and the stored data. The use of a particular forming element is thereby biased dependent upon the relative desirability data for the other forming elements and the corresponding input image signals for the other forming elements.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for ink jet printing can reduce density unevenness caused by an end deviation condition associated with ink droplets ejected from a print head, regardless of gray scale of a printed image. The present invention thus sets the print duty for a nozzle located at an end of a nozzle array formed in a print head on the basis of the end deviation amount of a position impacted by an ink droplet ejected from the end of the nozzle array.

Abstract: Replacement of a recording head on a recording apparatus is detected on the basis of a serial number allocated to each recording head. The recording head also carries head characteristic information such as color information, shading information and so forth. When the recording head is replaced with a new one, the head characteristic information of the newly mounted recording head is automatically stored, so that head driving conditions are automatically determined to optimize the recording conditions without requiring any manual adjustment. Recovery operation is automatically executed when replacement of the recording head is detected, so that required recording conditions are recovered without manual instructions.

Abstract: In a method of cleaning an ejection face by supplying a head liquid on a surface (ejection face) of an inkjet head provided with ink ejection outlets, and then by performing wiping operations thereon, an ink residue on the ejection face is efficiently and surely removed from the ejection face to achieve a sufficient cleaning thereon. For this purpose, a first wiping operation is first performed such that a wiper (9A) is relatively largely bent, and slidingly contacts the ejection face at an abdomen thereof to efficiently perform the application, stirring and mixing of the head liquid. Then, a second wiping operation is performed such that an edge portion of the top end of a wiper (9B) slidingly contacts the surface to efficiently scrape the mixture of the head liquid and the ink residue.

Abstract: In an ink-jet apparatus employing an ink-jet head having a plurality of heaters corresponding to one ink ejection opening and performing printing by ejecting an ink from the ink-jet head, timings of bubble forming are mutually shifted at respective heaters of the plurality of heaters upon application of respective pulses to the plurality of heaters and based on information relating to an ink temperature of the ink-jet head. The ejection amount can be controlled by forming bubbles in the ink to eject the ink through the ink ejection opening.

Abstract: In both a full-line and a serial printer, the amount of ink passing through nozzles of print heads is sometimes decreased below a normal value before and during actual printing. In the printer of the present invention, a preliminary ejecting operation is performed taking the opportunity in which the amount of ink passing through nozzles is decreased below a normal value. Then, the amount of ink passing through nozzles recovers to the normal value in ink ejection after the preliminary ejecting operation. Since only a small amount of ink is ejected through the nozzles during the preliminary ejection operation, dots formed on a print sheet are not noticeable. Further, it is unnecessary to move the print heads to a home position where an ejection recovering process is executed to remove ink having an increased viscosity.

Abstract: The temperature of a recording head used for recording is adjusted by heating a recording head that is not used for recording and utilizing the effect of heat conduction. The adoption of such a configuration makes it possible to adjust the temperature of a recording head during recording by the use of a relatively simple temperature control circuit. Further, since temperature adjustment can be continuously and efficiently conducted, a good discharge condition can be achieved, and the speed of recording can be increased by reducing the number of recovery operations such as preliminary ejections.

Abstract: An ink jet recording apparatus is provided that changes the adjustment temperature of a recording head depending on the number of recording media so that a favorable recording result can be maintained for any number of recording media and a time required for the recording can be reduced. Different adjustment temperatures T2 are used depending on the number of recording media. When the number of recording media is relatively small, T2 is determined to be low and, when the number of recording media is relatively large, then T2 is determined to be high. When the recording is started, when the head temperature is lower than the determined temperature T2, then ink is heated by a sub heater. Depending on the determined temperature, an interval with which a preliminary ejection is performed is changed.

Abstract: In an image area printed by a nozzle group including a defective nozzle, pixels printed by the defective nozzle and part of pixels located in the vicinity of the same are printed by another nozzle group. As a result, since printing is performed not only at the pixels printed by the defective nozzle but also at the pixels in the neighborhood thereof simultaneously by separate nozzles, irregularities of printing attributable to interpolation are distributed even when there is a relative misalignment between the nozzle groups. It is therefore possible to obtain a preferable image without any increase in output time even when a printing head including a defective nozzle is used.

Abstract: A secondary color is used for printing an image with a printer so as to reduce the granularity of the printed image, particularly the light image area. Data of magenta and cyan color components of image data is subjected to under-removal processing to generate blue ink image data as the mentioned secondary color. A blue ink dot is printed in accordance with the blue ink data obtained by the under removal processing to replace the magenta and cyan data. As a result, it is possible to reduce the granularity that would otherwise be caused by localized distributions of magenta and cyan dots.

Abstract: To relate to a head liquid which is supplied to efficiently remove ink residues and the like which are attached to the surface of an inkjet head provided with ejection openings through which an ink containing a color material is ejected. In a case where a nonvolatile solvent such as glycerin is used as the head liquid, the nonvolatile solvent absorbs moisture, and thereby an extremely large change in mass is exhibited. As a result, the above supply amount is varied. To solve the problem, it was found that the previous mixing of water with the nonvolatile solvent can provide a smaller change in mass than that in a case where the nonvolatile solvent by itself is caused to absorb moisture. Accordingly, a mixture prepared by mixing the nonvolatile solvent and water in an appropriate predetermined ratio is used as a head liquid.

Abstract: A method of a cleaning of an ejection face by supplying a head liquid on the face of an inkjet head provided with ink ejection openings and then by performing a wiping operation. Sufficient cleaning is achieved by appropriately specifying relative relationships among the surface tensions of the face, the ink and the head liquid, and by efficiently and surely removing an ink residue from the face. By supplying the head liquid to the ink residue on the face, both are mixed with each other, and thereby the ink residue is incorporated into the head liquid. In this respect, by using the ink and the head liquid both having a surface tension higher than that of the face, a wetting of a dissolved matter of the ink residue with respect to the face is reduced, and the dissolved matter of the ink residue is smoothly moved by the wiping operation.

Abstract: An ink jet printing apparatus, which can prevent unwanted visible bands or stripes from appearing in a printed image, performs a nozzle information generation step for generating nozzle information representing an ejection characteristic of each nozzle, according to a landing state on a print medium of an ink droplet ejected from each nozzle of the print head; an estimation step for estimating, based on the generated nozzle information and the print data, an effect that the ink droplet ejected from each nozzle has on the image to be formed; a correction information generation step for generating correction information to correct an ink ejection condition of each nozzle according to a result of estimation by the estimation step; and a control step for controlling a driving of the nozzles according to the correction information.