摘要:
This invention relates to an ink-jet printer equipped with an ink-jet printhead and a control method and apparatus for the ink-jet printer. The printhead incorporates an EEPROM storing head information including the ink discharge amount characteristics of the printhead. The head information stored in this EEPROM is transmitted from the ink-jet printer having the printhead to the printer driver of a host computer. The printer driver then selects a gamma correction table in accordance with the head information. In this case, a gamma correction table is selected from a plurality of gamma correction tables in which pieces of correction information which make print densities uniform are stored in correspondence with ink discharge amounts. This table also includes correction data for correcting an increase in ink discharge amount to prevent beading due to an increase in ink discharge amount with a rise in the temperature of the printhead.
摘要:
An ink jet printer includes a distance adjust mechanism for adjusting in two steps a distance between a liquid nozzle-formed face of a print unit and the recording surface, and a unit having first and second cleaning members with different free end positions, lengths and/or thicknesses are arranged movable relative to the face and adapted to wipe a substance adhering to the face off of the face with a predetermined engagement condition. The substance is wiped off of the face by the first and second cleaning members having different engagement conditions when the face is a first distance from a recording surface, and is wiped off with the engagement condition of a wipe portion of the first cleaning member virtually equal to the engagement condition of a wipe portion of the second cleaning member associated with the first distance when the face is a second distance from the medium. Further, a height difference between the cleaning members is set almost equal to the distance the face is moved by the distance adjust mechanism.
摘要:
A printing method capable of printing a high-quality image at a high speed and low cost and a corresponding printing apparatus are disclosed. In this printing apparatus, a shading-corrected mask pattern for multipass printing control in consideration of the characteristics of each printing element of a printhead is generated. The size of the mask pattern in the conveyance direction of the printing medium is set to be an integer multiple of the conveyance amount of the printing medium per scanning of the printhead. Image data masked using the mask pattern is transferred to the printhead and printed. Alternatively, the conveyance-direction size of the mask pattern for masking print data in accordance with each pass printing of multipass printing is set to be equivalent to the number of nozzles of an ink-jet printhead having a plurality of nozzles arrayed in the conveyance direction of the printing medium, and the mask pattern is dividedly used for each pass printing. Any error of the position of a dot printed on the printing medium by an ink droplet discharged from each nozzle is detected in units of nozzles. Printing may be performed using a mask pattern generated such that a printing element with a small error is frequently used in accordance with the detection result, or performed such that the positions of print data are exchanged.
摘要:
When recording a gradation pixel by performing pseudo-halftone processing, the occurrence of unevenness in the density in the recorded image is suppressed. For that purpose, when recording a pseudo-halftone image using dot patterns, a dot-pattern table storing a plurality of different dot patterns is provided for each gradation value. One dot-pattern table is selected from N dot-pattern tables based on gradation-value information for each pixel. One dot pattern is selected from the selected dot-pattern table, based on position information indicated by the pixel, and recording is performed using the selected dot pattern. It is thereby possible to prevent the concentrated use of a particular nozzle of a recording head, and suppress the occurrence of unevenness in the density due to characteristics of the specific nozzle.
摘要:
When recording a gradation pixel by performing pseudo-halftone processing, the occurrence of unevenness in the density in the recorded image is suppressed. For that purpose, when recording a pseudo-halftone image using dot patterns, a dot-pattern table storing a plurality of different dot patterns is provided for each gradation value. One dot-pattern table is selected from N dot-pattern tables based on gradation-value information for each pixel. One dot pattern is selected from the selected dot-pattern table, based on position information indicated by the pixel, and recording is performed using the selected dot pattern. It is thereby possible to prevent the concentrated use of a particular nozzle of a recording head, and suppress the occurrence of unevenness in the density due to characteristics of the specific nozzle.
摘要:
At least defective printing element information about a defective printing element among a plurality of printing elements is stored in an EEPROM. A complementary printing element for masking printing data corresponding to the defective printing element indicated by the defective printing element information and complementarily printing the printing data corresponding to the defective printing element is determined. The printing data of the defective printing element is printed using the determined complementary printing element.
摘要:
When highly redundant information that expresses five tones using 4 bits is transferred to a printer in terms of a unit data length in data transfer, efficiency is very poor. Hence, multi-valued data is quantized to 5-valued data, which is output as a 4-bit code that can express five values. 4-bit codes for three bits are combined to be converted into an 8-bit code. The 8-bit codes are packed into data of a 16-bit unit, and the packed data is transferred to the printer.
摘要:
By performing printing by a reduced number of main scanning times and by a bind pitch of a period which is imperceptible to human vision, a printing apparatus and a printing method for forming an image of visually imperceptible banding artifacts is provided. For this purpose, in a printing apparatus wherein a printing head is scanned for a plurality of times in a main scanning direction and at each scanning the printing head is divided into a plurality of blocks and printing is made to a region corresponding to each of the blocks by multi-scanning printing, the region is formed by printing one divided region in each of the plurality of scans in a transporting direction.
摘要:
When recording a gradation pixel by performing pseudo-halftone processing, the occurrence of unevenness in the density in the recorded image is suppressed. For that purpose, when recording a pseudo-halftone image using dot patterns, a dot-pattern table storing a plurality of different dot patterns is provided for each gradation value. One dot-pattern table is selected from N dot-pattern tables based on gradation-value information for each pixel. One dot pattern is selected from the selected dot-pattern table, based on position information indicated by the pixel, and recording is performed using the selected dot pattern. It is thereby possible to prevent the concentrated use of a particular nozzle of a recording head, and suppress the occurrence of unevenness in the density due to characteristics of the specific nozzle.
摘要:
An inkjet recording apparatus includes a recording head, a cap, and a preliminary discharge unit. The recording head can discharge a plurality of types of ink. The cap caps a discharge port face of the recording head. The preliminary discharge unit causes the recording head to execute a preliminary discharge. The preliminary discharge unit changes a preliminary discharge operation according to a length of time during which the discharge port face is capped by the cap.