Abstract: An ink jet recording method and apparatus for recording pictures, characters, etc. on both sides of a recording medium by ejecting a first ink and a second ink on the same side of the medium, wherein the first ink is ejected based on mirror data corresponding to a mirror image of the image to be recorded and the second ink is ejected based on data corresponding to the image to be recorded.

Abstract: An ink jet recording method uses a recording head capable of ejecting a first ink containing a coloring material with a relatively small particle size ?d and a second ink containing a coloring material with a relatively large particle size ?p and also uses a specific recording medium including a porous layer and a base, wherein the porous layer has a gap size ?h that is larger than the particle size ?d and smaller than the particle size ?p. The first ink is ejected to the porous layer side of the recording medium and then the second ink is ejected to the same side. The first ink passes through the porous layer to form an image viewed from the base side, and the second ink fixes on the surface of the porous layer to form an image viewed from the recording side.

Abstract: The present invention reduces the granularity of the dots for the entire density range by optimally setting formation amounts of a low-density dot and of a high-density dot per unit area. For this purpose, the formation amounts of the low-density dot and of the high-density dot in accordance with the density level are determined in such a way that as the density level rises, the formation amount of the low-density dot is gradually increased up to a first peak amount (200%) and, after reaching the first peak, gradually decreased, and in a range of density levels higher than a predetermined density level at which the low-density dot is formed to a specified amount (200%), as the density level rises, the formation amount of the high-density dot is gradually increased up to a second peak amount (100%) smaller than the first peak amount.

Abstract: In an ink-jet printing apparatus which includes a plurality of printing heads, each having an array of ink discharging elements, preliminary discharge of driving the elements of at least one printing head is performed a predetermined number of times. The printing head for which the preliminary discharge is to be performed is switched in a predetermined cycle. In performing the preliminary discharge, switching of the printing head is so controlled as to perform preliminary discharge a desired number of times for all the elements of the printing heads by repeating the cycle.

Abstract: An ink jet recording apparatus can reduce waste ink produced in marginless printing caused by overflow from an ink absorber. To realize this, each time the marginless printing is executed, the volume of waste ink produced by the marginless printing is cumulatively added up in order to control a total volume of the waste ink. The waste ink volume to be added up is determined by at least the kind of print medium or the print mode.

Abstract: By using an ink jet head, which has for each color two parallel columns of nozzles arranged side by side in the main scan direction and shifted from each other by one-half the pitch at which the nozzles are arranged in each column, odd-numbered rasters and even-numbered rasters making up an image are printed by the two nozzle columns. The registration between the odd- and even-numbered rasters is secured during the printing to produce an image with high print quality. For that purpose, the ink ejection timing between the two raster groups is shifted by a predetermined interval to form a plurality of adjustment patterns; the adjustment patterns printed are checked and, according to the check result, an adjustment value for the ink ejection timing between the two ink nozzle columns is entered, and the entered adjustment value is stored to be reflected on the actual printing operation.

Abstract: In a display apparatus (10), a lenticular lens (2) is detachable from or integrated with a frame (1). An insertion slot 3 for inserting an object to be displayed in the horizontal direction is formed between the frame (1) and lenticular lens (2). An arm (4) which is used to place the display apparatus to stand upright in a portrait or landscape position, and attachment grooves (5) that receive the arm (4) are formed on the back surface of the frame (1). The arm (4) and upper, lower, right, and left symmetrical attachment grooves (5) are formed to be able to place the display apparatus (10) in any of the upper, lower, right, and left directions when the object to be placed is set in a direction perpendicular to its insertion direction.

Abstract: Printing on an area of a printing medium in which printing locations may be significantly deviated due to inaccurate feeding of the printing medium can be performed, without degrading image quality. Specifically, when lines in this area (second area) are printed using four scanning operations (passes) of a print head, a duty in masking process is set at zero for the scanning operation (pass A) after a change-line operation for feeding the printing medium with a possible large shift feeding error, and is distributed to other scanning operations. Thus, no dots are formed during this scanning operation (pass A), thereby preventing significantly deviated dots from being formed.

Abstract: By using an ink jet head, which has for each color two parallel columns of nozzles arranged side by side in the main scan direction and shifted from each other by one-half the pitch at which the nozzles are arranged in each column, odd-numbered rasters and even-numbered rasters making up an image are printed by the two nozzle columns. The registration between the odd- and even-numbered rasters is secured during the printing to produce an image with high print quality. For that purpose, the ink ejection timing between the two raster groups is shifted by a predetermined interval to form a plurality of adjustment patterns; the adjustment patterns printed are checked and, according to the check result, an adjustment value for the ink ejection timing between the two ink nozzle columns is entered; and the entered adjustment value is stored to be reflected on the actual printing operation.

Abstract: The present invention relates to an ink jet printing apparatus which sufficiently heats a head even in a low-temperature environment, which enables a proper image to be printed by stably ejecting ink, and which can be inexpensively and simply constructed. According to the present invention, if the detected temperature of a printhead is lower than a first heating threshold temperature, a heating mode in which the printhead can be heated is set before a printing operation. Further, when the heating mode is set and the detected temperature of the printhead is lower than a second heating threshold temperature, a heating unit heats the printhead. Consequently, even in a low-temperature environment, the heating operation keeps ink in a desired condition suitable for printing.

Abstract: The resultant colors of colorants are predicted, a color difference generated due to variations in density is calculated, and the combination of colorants for minimizing the color difference is determined, whereby deterioration of a printed image occurring due to variations in density can be minimized.

Abstract: An apparatus and method are provided to enable high speed printing of an image with high resolution while suppressing degradation of image quality due to white stripes and density variations. In an ink jet printing apparatus using a multi-pass printing system, the same scan print area is divided at a predetermined pitch and the printing duties of the divided areas determined by the thinning out mask pattern are set to different values. In regard to the same scan print area formed by a plurality of the main scans, the divided areas corresponding to the ends of the print head have their printing duties set smaller than those of the divided areas on the inner side of the ends of the print head.

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.

Abstract: A contamination of a printing medium caused by ink mist or the like is suppressed, which may scatter or float in an apparatus when margin-less printing is carried out in an ink jet printer. When margin-less printing for an edge of a printing medium P is performed, a predetermined edge area {circle around (1)} is printed using a smaller number of ejection openings during one scanning operation than that used for other areas {circle around (2)} and {circle around (3)}, while taking transportation errors relating to this end into consideration. This reduces the amount of ink mist resulting from ink ejected out of the edge of the printing medium during one scanning operation.

Abstract: A contamination of a printing medium caused by ink mist or the like is suppressed, which may scatter or float in an apparatus when margin-less printing is carried out in an ink jet printer. When margin-less printing for an edge of a printing medium P is performed, a predetermined edge area {circle over (1)} is printed using a smaller number of ejection openings during one scanning operation than that used for other areas {circle over (2)} and {circle over (3)}, while taking transportation errors relating to this end into consideration. This reduces the amount of ink mist resulting from ink ejected out of the edge of the printing medium during one scanning operation.

Abstract: An ink jet recording method uses a recording head capable of ejecting a first ink containing a coloring material with a relatively small particle size &phgr;d and a second ink containing a coloring material with a relatively large particle size &phgr;p and also uses a specific recording medium including a porous layer and a base, wherein the porous layer has a gap size &phgr;h that is larger than the particle size &phgr;d and smaller than the particle size &phgr;p. The first ink is ejected to the porous layer side of the recording medium and then the second ink is ejected to the same side. The first ink passes through the porous layer to form an image viewed from the base side, and the second ink fixes on the surface of the porous layer to form an image viewed from the recording side.

Abstract: An ink jet recording apparatus adjusts at least one of a preliminary discharge time representing a time until the subsequent preliminary discharge is performed and a compensated time determined on the basis of the time elapsed since the previous preliminary discharge, so that the preliminary discharge is performed at a predetermined preliminary discharge hole. Accordingly, the ink jet recording apparatus is capable of recording on different kinds of recording media in a manner suitable for each of them without using a complex control process, and of performing the preliminary discharge according to the size of the recording media. In addition, a reduction in the throughput is prevented by using the ink jet recording apparatus.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method of printing a high quality color image with no color variations at high speed. For this purpose, this invention arranges in a main scan direction a plurality of print heads that eject different color inks, and reciprocally moves each of the print heads to perform a multipass printing in which a print operation is executed in both the forward and backward passes. During the multipass printing, the print duties of the print heads are set by mask patterns. Each of the mask patterns divides the print duty setting area for each nozzle group of each head into subdivided areas, sets the print duties of the subdivided areas to values different from each other and sets the print duties of the print heads to different values.

Abstract: In an ink-jet printing apparatus which includes a plurality of printing heads each having an array of ink discharging elements, preliminary discharge of driving the elements of at least one printing head is performed a predetermined number of times as a unit in performing preliminary discharge of discharging ink irrelevant to printing. The printing head for which the preliminary discharge is to be performed is switched in a predetermined cycle. In performing the preliminary discharge and switching of the printing head are so controlled as to perform preliminary discharge a desired number of times for all the elements of the printing heads by repeating the cycle.

Abstract: An ink-jet printing apparatus, for printing an image based on image information on a printing medium by relatively moving an ink-jet printhead, detects the temperature of the ink-jet printhead by using a head temperature detection unit and outputs it to a driving frequency determination unit. The driving frequency determination unit acquires temperature information in units of pages of image information or predetermined image areas. If the acquired temperature is equal to or higher than a predetermined temperature, the driving frequency of the ink-jet printhead is decreased when a predetermined unit of the image information is printed.