Abstract: A preliminary process for ejecting an ink after ejecting a processing liquid on a printing medium and a post-process for ejecting the processing liquid after ejecting the ink on the printing medium are distinguished. In one preferred mode, when a preliminarily process portion, in which an ink dot is formed after formation of a processing liquid dot, and a post-process portion, in which the processing liquid dot is formed after formation of the ink dot are present in admixing fashion, an ejection amount of the ink per unit area in the post-process portion is made smaller than the ejection amount of the ink per unit area in the preliminarily process portion. By this, a difference of printing quality in the preliminarily process portion and the post-process portion on the printing medium can be made smaller.

Abstract: An ink jet printing method using an ink jet ejecting portion for ejecting ink on a printing material and a print quality improving liquid ejecting portion for ejecting print quality improving liquid to be ejected to the printing material, the improvement residing in that an application mode of the print quality improving liquid is different depending on a printing mode in which printing operation is carried out.

Abstract: In a color deviation correction process, a printing apparatus prints a test pattern that allows highly accurate visual detection of a color deviation caused by output characteristic variations of individual print heads in the printing apparatus. More specifically, when patches of a test pattern are printed by mixing three colors, cyan, magenta, and yellow, the gradation value of each of the patch forming colors is changed in a gradation region close to a gradation value at which the saturation difference becomes maximum between a patch printed by the print heads having a central output characteristic with no deviation and a patch printed by deviating the gradation value of each color from the central output characteristic by a predetermined value.

Abstract: An ink jet printing method uses an ink jet ejecting portion for ejecting ink on a printing material and a print quality improving liquid ejecting portion for ejecting print quality improving liquid on the printing material. The application mode of the print quality improving liquid is different depending on the printing mode in which a printing operation is carried out.

Abstract: An information processing apparatus, a printing apparatus, an information processing method and a printing method can print high quality images without lowering throughput by correcting density variations to within a range where they can hardly be perceived by the human eye as stripes or unevenness. With this invention, a print head having a plurality of nozzles capable of ejecting ink is used to print a test pattern based on image data with a predetermined gradation level. Then, based on read data of the test pattern, a temporary correction value &agr;′[N] is calculated which will made the print density of rasters corresponding to each of the plurality of nozzles constant. The temporary correction value &agr;40 [N] is limited by the upper limit &agr;U and the lower limit &agr;L so that it is limited to within a range between &agr;U and &agr;L.

Abstract: A printing duty for a single scanning operation is determined for each print head of color ink used for printing. When the printing duty D is judged to be larger than or equal to a predetermined threshold value Dth, dividing printing is executed in which the printing of a area for a single scanning operation is divided into two scanning operations. This operation can reduce the printing duty of the single scanning operation to reduce the dirt on an ejection portion for ejecting inks.

Abstract: A preliminary process for ejecting an ink after ejecting a processing liquid on a printing medium and a post-process for ejecting the processing liquid after ejecting the ink on the printing medium are distinguished. In one preferred mode, when a preliminarily process portion, in which an ink dot is formed after formation of a processing liquid dot, and a post-process portion, in which the processing liquid dot is formed after formation of the ink dot are present in admixing fashion, an ejection amount of the ink per unit area in the post-process portion is made smaller than the ejection amount of the ink per unit area in the preliminarily process portion. By this, a difference of printing quality in the preliminarily process portion and the post-process portion on the printing medium can be made smaller.

Abstract: A distinction apparatus of a printing apparatus distinguishes data compression rate according to each of the data transferred from a host computer, and a mode selection apparatus selects a printing mode according to slow printing velocity when data compression rate is low and selects a printing mode according to fast printing velocity when data compression rate is high, and then the printing head can be controlled under printing velocity according to the selected printing mode.

Abstract: An ink-jet recording apparatus ejects droplets of a recording-improvement liquid on a boundary line between two different color portions of an image by using an ink-jet recording head. The ink-jet recording head comprises a group of nozzles for ejecting the recording-improvement liquid which is responsible for precipitating or condensing a coloring substance in the ink. Accordingly, a high-quality image that comprises black-color portion with a high image density without causing any feathering and multiple-color portions without a spread of ink can be obtained.

Abstract: An ink jet printing method for performing printing onto a printing medium with the use of both of a colored ink ejected from an ink jet head and a printing property improving liquid to be applied to the printing medium for improving a printing property for an ink jet printing apparatus, having the steps of: at least one time or more printing a first colored ink on the printing medium, at least one time or more applying the printing property improving liquid onto a region printed with the colored ink, and at least one time or more printing a second colored ink on a region where the printing property improving liquid is applied.

Abstract: In an apparatus to perform printing by ejecting an ink and a printing quality improving liquid for making a coloring agent in the ink insoluble or coagulated, reaction between the printing quality improving liquid and the coloring agent of the ink is certainly caused. Namely, after ejecting the printing quality improving liquid from a head, Bk ink, Y ink, M ink and C ink are ejected through heads within a given period, e.g. 500 msec. By this, the printing quality improving liquid may react with the coloring agent of the ink before penetrating into a printing medium to certainly make the coloring agent insoluble or coagulated.

Abstract: A printing apparatus and a printing method which eliminate a problem of boundary stripes by taking advantage of features of the multipass printing performed by the printing apparatus without causing a reduction in a throughput. An amount of paper feed for each scan is set to a value which, when multiplied by an integer, is not equal to a printing width covered by a total number of nozzles in a print head, in order to prevent the adjoining of the end portions of print areas of each scan which would otherwise increase the possibility of the boundary stripes being formed at the boundaries and to make the boundaries of the print areas appear at shorter intervals than the paper feed intervals. At the same time, the mask used for the image data to be supplied to the print head in each scan is so set that the mask corresponding to the end nozzle groups among a plurality of nozzle groups have low printing duties.

Abstract: Per every one printing scan of a head, a printing data to be printed by the corresponding scan is divided into L in a scanning direction (lateral direction) and N in a paper feeding direction (longitudinal direction. Concerning each counting blocks identified by l and number of driving rln is counted. Then, with respect to each l, rln are sequentially summed from n=1 to obtain Sl. At every time of summing for deriving Sl, judgment is made whether Sl is greater than a predetermined value R determined in association with a power source capacity. When judgment is made that Sl is greater than R, printing of a printing data corresponding to the counting blocks of 1 to (n−1) with respect to n−1 which is one smaller value that the value n of the counting block upon judgment that Sl is greater than R, is performed, and then paper feeding is performed for the corresponding counting blocks. Thus, lowering of throughput can be restricted with optimally using the power source capacity of the apparatus.

Abstract: An ink-jet recording apparatus, ink-jet recording method, and an image processing apparatus are disclosed in which the durability of an image formed with an ink on a recording medium is enhanced by applying a processing liquid to inked dots without causing an excessive application of the processing liquid thereby achieving a high-quality image including no distortion. The processing liquid having the capability of improving the recorded image in terms of resistance to water is applied to all inked dots located at edges while the processing liquid is applied to every predetermined number of inked dots at the other locations, Matrix patterns consisting of a plurality of dots for each gray level are selected so that the number of inked dots located at edges is minimized thereby minimizing the number of dots to which the processing liquid is applied thus achieving an improvement in the resistance to water using the minimized amount of the processing liquid.

Abstract: An in ink jet printing method and apparatus are disclosed which prevents mixing of ink with a liquid insolubilizing and/or agglomerating the ink and which can print images having excellent water resistance and high quality. Prevention of mixing of the ink with the liquid is achieved by separately arranging an ink receiver for receiving ink ejected by preliminary ejection and the liquid insolubilizing and/or agglomerating the ink ejected by preliminary ejection, or by setting the distance between the ink jet cartridge for the liquid and the cartridge for ink adjacent thereto is made larger than the distance between two adjacent ink jet cartridges. Alternatively, the direction of ejecting ports of an ink jet ejectors may be deviated.

Abstract: In the present invention, upon printing of an image on a printing medium by ejecting an ink for a treatment liquid ejected on the printing medium, by scanning the printing medium, a number of scan for the same region of the printing medium is judged, and ejection from a printing head is performed by variably setting the ejection amount of the treatment liquid in one scan by varying ratio of dots to be ejected versus all dots on the printing medium. Thus, deposition of mist or rebounded droplets on an ejection surface of an ink ejecting portion of the printing head can be avoided. By the present invention, pollution of the ejection surface of the printing head is avoided and thus reliability of ejection of the printing head is maintained.

Abstract: An ink-jet recording method and a recording apparatus used in the method detect a blank region of an image, and enable backward printing only when detecting those blanks at the top and bottom ends of a region where printing can be performed by one scan. The ink-jet recording method and the recording apparatus prevent irregular images, that would otherwise be caused by consecutive rows printed by the backward printing, and execute forward and backward printing while reducing the color difference between the printing directions so that a high-quality output can be obtained at high speed. As a result, when ink is ejected before the ejection of a print-characteristic improving liquid, the image quality of a border in contact with a region including the print-characteristic improving liquid in the main-scan direction and the sub-scan direction can be improved.

Abstract: On the basis of an image data for one line, ejection data is established distributed ejection data in a period of two pixels for each scan for performing printing by scanning twice with different ejection openings. Then, a processing liquid data is generated with a processing liquid mask of a period of three pixels which is prime to the period of two pixels, with respect to the ejection data. By this, with respect to results of a first scan and a second scan, pixels, on which an ink and a processing liquid are overlaid can be distributed uniformly. As a result, it is never differentiate order of application of the processing liquid by performing printing in the order of second scan and the first scan in other scanning region from correspondence of the ejection openings.

Abstract: An ink-jet recording apparatus ejects droplets of a recording-improvement liquid on a boundary line between two different color portions of an image by using an ink-jet recording head. The ink-jet recording head comprises a group of nozzles for ejecting the recording-improvement liquid which is responsible for precipitating or condensing a coloring substance in the ink. Accordingly, a high-quality image that comprises black-color portion with a high image density without causing any feathering and multiple-color portions without a spread of ink can be obtained.

Abstract: An ink jet printing method prints an image on a printing medium by ejecting ink and printabilty improvement liquid containing a substance for improving printablity of the ink to the printing medium. At this time, ejection of the ink and ejection of the printability improvement liquid onto the printing medium are achieved such that the position where the printability improvement liquid is applied and the position where the ink is applied are different from each other, but partially overlap when the ejected printability improvement liquid comes into contact with the ejected ink on the printing medium.