Printing apparatus and adjustment method

A printing apparatus

• including
• a printing head including a plurality of printing chips including a plurality of nozzles configured to eject liquid onto a medium,
• a main scanning unit for relatively moving the printing head and the medium in a main scanning direction,
• a sub-scanning unit for relatively moving the printing head and the medium in a sub-scanning direction intersecting the main scanning direction, and
• a control unit for performing print control including control of the relative movement by the main scanning unit and the sub-scanning unit and control of the ejection of the liquid from the printing head to perform printing on the medium, and
• configured to print a test pattern for acquiring a correction value for adjusting an ejection characteristic for each of the printing chips included in the printing head, the printing apparatus further comprising a reception unit configured to receive information indicating a priority when the ejection characteristic is adjusted, wherein
• the test pattern includes
• a reference pattern being a single density gradation and
• an adjustment pattern including a patch group in which a single density gradation patch is formed for each of a plurality of different gradations, and
• the control unit
• when performing printing of the test pattern, performs the print control such that the reference pattern and the adjustment pattern are formed at positions adjacent to each other, and
• determines the printing chip used when forming the reference pattern, according to the information received by the reception unit.

An adjustment method in a printing apparatus that includes

• a printing head including a plurality of printing chips including a plurality of nozzles configured to eject liquid onto a medium,
• a main scanning unit for relatively moving the printing head and the medium in a main scanning direction, and
• a sub-scanning unit for relatively moving the printing head and the medium in a sub-scanning direction intersecting the main scanning direction, and
• performs print control including control of the relative movement by the main scanning unit and the sub-scanning unit and control of the ejection of the liquid from the printing head to perform printing on the medium, wherein
• the printing apparatus performs test pattern printing of printing a test pattern for acquiring a correction value for adjusting an ejection characteristic for each of the printing chips included in the printing head,
• the test pattern includes
• a reference pattern being a single density gradation and
• an adjustment pattern including a patch group in which a single density gradation patch is formed for each of a plurality of different gradations, and
• the test pattern printing is performed by performing the print control
• such that the reference pattern and the adjustment pattern are formed at positions adjacent to each other, and
• such that the liquid is ejected onto an identical target region of the medium using at least two of the printing chips among the printing chips included in the printing head for the reference pattern to be formed in the identical target region.