Abstract: For a horizontally arranged head in which nozzle rows are arranged parallel with a scanning direction of the print head, two of a plurality of ink colors used which have the largest hue difference are selected. Then, between the nozzle rows for these two colors, at least two nozzle rows for other colors are arranged so that the first nozzle row for the two colors have a large inter-nozzle-row distance. Then, the resulting print head is used for printing. If cyan, light cyan, magenta, light magenta, yellow, and black are used as ink colors, the light cyan, black, yellow, and light magenta inks are arranged between the cyan and magenta inks, having a large hue difference.

Abstract: An ink jet recording apparatus is structured to perform discharges in the capping status when preliminary discharges are performed in a shot number larger than a predetermined number, and perform discharges in a cap or a preparatory port other than the cap when the preliminary discharges are performed in a shot number less than the predetermined number. With the structure thus arranged, it is made possible to implement the suppression of the mist generation due to the preliminary discharges, and to make the time of recording on a recording medium shorter as well.

Abstract: The invention prevents a pattern arising from periodicity of dot arrangement from appearing as noises of a streak etc. when a plurality of different dot arrangements are used repeatedly in a unit of a predetermined number of the dot arrangements for the same level of gradation of input image data, and thereby makes it possible to print a high-quality image. For this end, when input image data quantized to one of multivalued levels of gradation is allocated to a dot arrangement of H×N, a matrix of A×B created by combining a plurality of different dot arrangements each displaying the same level of gradation of the input image data in a raster direction and in a column direction is used as a minimum unit, and the dot arrangement of this matrix is allocated to the input image data.

Abstract: After the front end area of the print medium has been printed and when the printing is to be continued following the front end area, a preliminary ejection is performed, prior to the current scan, on the nozzles that have not been used in preceding scans but begin to be used in a current scan, in order to remove viscous ink from the nozzles and making them ready to perform ejection. As a result, the ink ejection from the nozzles that begin to be used in the current scan becomes satisfactory.