US 2010/0245446 A1 · PRINTING APPARATUS AND PRINTING METHOD

Abstract

In a 2M-pass printing operation that forms dots including overlapping dots, this invention makes an arrangement to ensure that the number of overlapping dots that are printed in a unit area in pairs of passes each straddling a print medium convey operation executed between an Mth pass and an (M+1)st pass is greater than the number of overlapping dots that are printed in pairs of passes straddling any other convey operation. This arrangement can cause two dots of the overlapping dots to be separated from each other in the event of a print position misalignment, preventing a possible density fall even in a unit area where the largest density reduction is feared to occur at time of the print position misalignment.

Claims13

Dependent claims

A printing apparatus, comprising:

a printing unit, which uses a print head that prints dots of the same color, and which prints an image on a print medium by causing the print head to print scan a unit area of the print medium 2M times (M is an integer equal to or greater than 2);
and
a print control unit configured to cause the print head to perform a print operation such that the number of overlapping dots, composed of dots printed at the same subpixel, in the print scan before the M+1th print scan and in the print scan after the Mth print scan, is greater than the number of overlapping dots, composed of dots printed at the same subpixel, in the print scan before the N+1th print scan (N is a positive integer different from N and less than 2M) and in the print scan after the Nth print scan.

A printing method comprising the steps of printing an image on a print medium using a print head that prints dots of the same color by causing the print head to print scan a unit area of the print medium 2M times (M is an integer equal to or greater than 2);

and
controlling the print head to perform a print operation such that the number of overlapping dots, composed of dots printed at the same subpixel, in the print scans before the M+1th print scan and in the print scans after the Mth print scan, is greater than the number of overlapping dots, composed of dots printed at the same subpixel, in the print scans before the N+1th print scan and in the print scans after the Nth print scan (N is a positive integer different from N and less than 2M).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Printing apparatus and printing method

Life of this patent

Printing apparatus and printing method

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims13