An ink jet recording apparatus with ink drop registration control adjusts the timing of the ink drop or drops that form each pixel to compensate for time-of-flight differences that are a function of the number of ink drops that form a pixel and as a function of the ink drops that constitute one or more immediately preceding pixels. A pixel buffer stores successive pixel data in a first-in first-out (FIFO) manner so that the timing of the ink drop for a current pixel can be adjusted, in part, as a function of the number of ink drops of at least one next successive pixel.