Minolta Company, Ltd.

Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

Osamu Yamada

Katsuhisa Toyama

Toshio Tsuboi

Soh Hirota

Takashi Harashima

Keiji Ogoh

An image forming apparatus performs dither processing on image data to form an image subjected to pseudo-halftone processing. The image forming apparatus includes a dither processing unit that performs dither processing on image data, and a dither pattern generation unit that generates a dither matrix for use in the dither processing, in accordance with an output gradation level. The dither matrix has a size of M&#xd7;N pixels, and has a plurality of halftone dots arranged in a predetermined pattern in accordance with the output gradation level in order to represent a gradation of each color. The plurality of halftone dots are arranged in the dither matrix such that the halftone dots corresponding to at least two colors are substantially identical in color area ratio to each other in the dither matrix irrespective of a relative position with respective to the colors.

Image forming apparatus capable of suppressing color variation due to misregistration of colors, image forming method, and computer-readable medium

An image forming apparatus is provided with a control section which stores detection results of a toner sensor regarding detection patterns. When forming a plurality of detection patterns on an intermediate transfer belt, the control section determines circumference-directional lengths of the detection patterns formed this time, based on the detection results of the toner sensor regarding the detection patterns formed immediately before. Thereby, the waste toner amount and toner consumption are not only decreased but also the time taken to detect the density of a detection pattern is reduced, while maintaining the detecting accuracy thereof.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

An image formation apparatus includes a scanner unit entering image data, a printer unit printing out input image data, a signature information detection unit detecting additional information including destination information from the image data, and a communication processing unit transmitting information related to printing of image data to the detected destination. Additional information including destination information is detected from the image data. Information related to printing of image data is transmitted to the destination detected from the image data. Accordingly, information related to printing when image data is printed is audited at the destination side.

Image formation apparatus limiting print operation according to additional information embedded in input image data

An image forming apparatus forms an image with a gradation by scanning an image carrying member with a light beam based on image data. The beam is generated by using a light beam generating element capable of independently varying the beam output and the beam diameter. The output of the beam generating element is controlled based on the gradation level (density level) of the image data and the diameter of the beam from the element is controlled based on the gradation level. In short, the output of the light beam generating element and the beam diameter are controlled individually. Therefore, the exposed area of the surface of the image carrying member can be controlled properly by controlling the beam diameter as well as the output of the light beam generating unit. As a result, there can be obtained an image forming apparatus having excellent gradation reproduction over all the density regions. In controlling the output of the light beam generating element, there are cases where a light emitting time per dot is controlled or the beam intensity is controlled, depending on the gradation level of image data.

Growing community of inventors

Toyokawa, Japan

Osamu Yamada