Printing apparatus, printing method, and recording medium

A method of recording plural types of dots on a printing medium with a head, based on input image data, and thereby printing an image, said head configured to create plural types of dots with respect to at least one hue by combining different ink densities and different ink weights, the dots including smaller dark dots having a first ink density and larger light dots having a second ink density lower than the first ink density such that the smaller and darker dots have a substantially identical unit density or density per unit area and at least one type of different-density dot having a different unit density from the identical-density dots, said method comprising the steps of:

• (a) determining according to the input image data for a pixel whether to create a dot with respect to the pixel and which type of a dot among plural types of dots having different unit densities is to be created;
• (b) selecting one of the at least two types of identical-density dots based on a predetermined selecting condition with respect to the pixel where one of the identical-density dots is to be created;
• and
• (c) driving said head and creating the dots determined in said step (a) and the dots selected in said step (b) in order to print a resulting image.

A recording medium, on which a program for specifying print data is recorded in a compute readable manner, said print data being used to cause a printing apparatus to record plural types of dots on a printing medium, based on input image data, and thereby to print an image, said program comprising:

• a first program code configured to realize a function of determining according to the input image data for a pixel whether to create a dot with respect to the pixel and which type of a dot among plural types of dots is to be created;
• a second program code configured to realize a function of selecting one among plural types of identical-density dots having a specific tone level based on a predetermined selecting condition,
• wherein the dots include smaller dark dots having a first ink density and larger light dots having a second ink density lower than the first ink density such that the smaller and darker dots have a substantially identical unit density or density per unit area and at least one type of different-density dot having a different unit density from the identical-density dots, and
• a third program code configured to realize a function of outputting a result determined by said determining function and selected by said selecting function.