Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Dynic Corporation

Miyuki Fujita

Hiroshi Tajika

Yuji Konno

Norihiro Kawatoko

Tetsuhiro Maeda

Tetsuya Edamura

Hiromitsu Hirabayashi

Yuji Akiyama

Hisashi Ishikawa

Takayuki Ogasahara

Noribumi Koitabashi

Hitoshi Sugimoto

Kenji Takahashi

Shigeyasu Nagoshi

Fumihiro Gotoh

Masaya Uetsuki

Nobuyuki Kuwabara

Hirowo Inoue

Shuichi Murakami

Minako Kato

Akitoshi Yamada

Atsuhiko Masuyama

Sadayuki Sugama

Makoto Takemura

Toshiharu Inui

Yoshiaki Takayanagi

Kazuyoshi Takahashi

Souhei Tanaka

Yasuhiro Numata

Masami Ikeda

Masahiko Higuma

Mamoru Sakaki

Shinji Kanemitsu

Masao Maeda

Yasushi Takatori

Tokuya Ohta

Masaya Uetuki

Atsushi Ushiroda

Hiroo Inoue

Toshio Kashino

Masao Kato

Tsutomu Abe

Hitoshi Nishikori

Jiro Moriyama

Hidehiko Kanda

Shoji Koike

Shinichi Sato

Masahiro Haruta

Eiichiro Shimizu

Fumihiro Goto

Hiroshi Sato

Hiroki Tajima

Makoto Torigoe

Mikio Sanada

Takeshi Okazaki

Yasuyuki Ishii

Michinari Mizutani

Keiichi Murai

Yoshihisa Takizawa

Yoshio Uchikata

Mayumi Yamamoto

Naohito Asai

Tsutomu Osaka

Yuko Nishioka

Eriko Saito

Noboru Fujita

Chikara Honzawa

Wataru Ozaku

Shinji Kamemitsu

With an ink jet head having for each color two parallel columns of nozzles arranged shifted by one-half the pitch, odd-numbered rasters and even-numbered rasters are printed by the two nozzle columns. The registration between the odd- and even-numbered rasters is secured during the printing to produce a high quality image. The ink ejection timing between the two raster groups is shifted by a predetermined interval to form adjustment patterns; the adjustment patterns are checked and, according to the check result, an adjustment value for the ink ejection timing between the two ink nozzle columns is entered, and the entered adjustment value is stored to be reflected on the actual printing operation. To facilitate the adjustment pattern check, the adjustment patterns have a dot distribution with a blue noise characteristic at a resolution at which the printing apparatus can print.

Adjustment method of printing positions, printing apparatus and printing system

By using an ink jet head, which has for each color two parallel columns of nozzles arranged side by side in the main scan direction and shifted from each other by one-half the pitch at which the nozzles are arranged in each column, odd-numbered rasters and even-numbered rasters making up an image are printed by the two nozzle columns. The registration between the odd- and even-numbered rasters is secured during the printing to produce an image with high print quality. For that purpose, the ink ejection timing between the two raster groups is shifted by a predetermined interval to form a plurality of adjustment patterns; the adjustment patterns printed are checked and, according to the check result, an adjustment value for the ink ejection timing between the two ink nozzle columns is entered, and the entered adjustment value is stored to be reflected on the actual printing operation. To facilitate the adjustment pattern check, the plurality of adjustment patterns have a dot distribution with a blue noise characteristic at a resolution at which the printing apparatus can print.

Adjustment method of printing positions, a printing apparatus and a printing system

An image forming system includes an electronic device and image forming device. The electronic device has a recording unit for recording a target image together with a recording condition of the target image and an output unit for outputting an image and a recording condition recorded by the recording unit. The image forming device has a requesting unit for requesting the electronic device to output an image to be formed and an image forming unit for applying an image processing to an image output by the output unit responsive to a request by the requesting unit. The requesting unit controls a quality of an image that the image forming device requests the electronic device to output in conformity with the recording condition and an image forming condition.

Image forming system and image forming apparatus

Replacement of a recording head on a recording apparatus is detected on the basis of a serial number allocated to each recording head. The recording head also carries head characteristic information such as color information, shading information and so forth. When the recording head is replaced with a new one, the head characteristic information of the newly mounted recording head is automatically stored, so that head driving conditions are automatically determined to optimize the recording conditions without requiring any manual adjustment. Recovery operation is automatically executed when replacement of the recording head is detected, so that required recording conditions are recovered without manual instructions.

Ink jet recording apparatus and method using replaceable recording heads

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.

Image recording apparatus, image recording method, method for controlling the image recording apparatus, storage medium storing a program capable of being read by a computer, and image processing method

An imaging apparatus which outputs image data to be processed by an image processing apparatus. The imaging apparatus includes an image acquiring unit, a storage, and a communication unit. The image acquiring unit is adapted to acquire image data from an image storing medium. The storage is adapted to store information of an image processing condition suited to the image processing apparatus. The information is usable to control image processing for the image data acquired by the image acquiring unit. The communication unit is adapted to communicate with the image processing apparatus to transmit the image data and the information of an image processing condition.

The present invention reduces the granularity of the dots for the entire density range by optimally setting formation amounts of a low-density dot and of a high-density dot per unit area. For this purpose, the formation amounts of the low-density dot and of the high-density dot in accordance with the density level are determined in such a way that as the density level rises, the formation amount of the low-density dot is gradually increased up to a first peak amount (200%) and, after reaching the first peak, gradually decreased, and in a range of density levels higher than a predetermined density level at which the low-density dot is formed to a specified amount (200%), as the density level rises, the formation amount of the high-density dot is gradually increased up to a second peak amount (100%) smaller than the first peak amount.

Image processor, method for processing image, printing apparatus, printing method, program, and storage medium that stores computer-readable program code

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.

Image processing apparatus and method, and storage medium

By using an ink jet head, which has for each color two parallel columns of nozzles arranged side by side in the main scan direction and shifted from each other by one-half the pitch at which the nozzles are arranged in each column, odd-numbered rasters and even-numbered rasters making up an image are printed by the two nozzle columns. The registration between the odd- and even-numbered rasters is secured during the printing to produce an image with high print quality. For that purpose, the ink ejection timing between the two raster groups is shifted by a predetermined interval to form a plurality of adjustment patterns; the adjustment patterns printed are checked and, according to the check result, an adjustment value for the ink ejection timing between the two ink nozzle columns is entered; and the entered adjustment value is stored to be reflected on the actual printing operation. To facilitate the adjustment pattern check, the plurality of adjustment patterns have a dot distribution with a blue noise characteristic at a resolution at which the printing apparatus can print.

The present invention relates to an ink jet printing apparatus which sufficiently heats a head even in a low-temperature environment, which enables a proper image to be printed by stably ejecting ink, and which can be inexpensively and simply constructed. According to the present invention, if the detected temperature of a printhead is lower than a first heating threshold temperature, a heating mode in which the printhead can be heated is set before a printing operation. Further, when the heating mode is set and the detected temperature of the printhead is lower than a second heating threshold temperature, a heating unit heats the printhead. Consequently, even in a low-temperature environment, the heating operation keeps ink in a desired condition suitable for printing.

Ink jet printing apparatus and method of controlling temperature of head of ink jet printing apparatus

A printer stores head information about a printhead in an EEPROM, and outputs the head information from an I/F. A host computer receives the head information, and sets the processing parameters of an image processor for printing data to be output to the printer on the basis of the input head information.

Printing system, printing apparatus, information processing apparatus, control method therefor, and computer-readable memory

An apparatus and method are provided to enable high speed printing of an image with high resolution while suppressing degradation of image quality due to white stripes and density variations. In an ink jet printing apparatus using a multi-pass printing system, the same scan print area is divided at a predetermined pitch and the printing duties of the divided areas determined by the thinning out mask pattern are set to different values. In regard to the same scan print area formed by a plurality of the main scans, the divided areas corresponding to the ends of the print head have their printing duties set smaller than those of the divided areas on the inner side of the ends of the print head.

Ink jet printing apparatus and ink jet printing method for forming an image on a print medium

In a printing apparatus communicating with an image data output device, a comparison unit compares a resolution of an image to be printed with a capability of the printer based upon image additional information, a request unit requests low quality image data corresponding to the image to be printed of the image data output device in accordance with a result of a comparison in the comparison unit, a determination unit determines a size of the image to be printed, and a second request unit requests image additional information, regarding the low quality image data corresponding to the image to be printed, of the image data output device in accordance with the size of the image to be printed. A printing method and a computer readable medium storing program code for causing a computer to perform the steps of the method are also provided.

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Tokyo, Japan

Miyuki Fujita