An ink jet printing method is provided which, although it uses an ink jet print head with a fixed small ink ejection volume, can form an image with a desired density by performing data processing and printing at a lower pixel density. The dot arrangement pattern that determines the presence or absence of a printed dot in each of a plurality of element areas making up each pixel is allocated to the individual pixels according to their grayscale level. Then the printing dots are divided into a plurality of scans of the print head. At this time, for those pixels having a predetermined grayscale level, a plurality of dots are printed overlappingly in each of predetermined element areas of these pixels. This arrangement allows a greater number of dots than is determined by the allocated dot arrangement pattern to be printed in these pixels according to the grayscale level.