A printing method and a printing apparatus are provided. The print quality of a printing apparatus in a multi-pass method is improved. A scan of applying light after ink droplets of photocurable ink land on a print medium and curing the ink droplets to form dots is performed on a predetermined unit region alternately in a forward direction and a backward direction multiple times. The time from landing of the ink droplets onto the print medium to curing differs between the forward direction and the backward direction. In a subsequent scan to form a surface layer of the unit region in the scan performed multiple times, an ejection controller controls ejection of the ink droplets such that the dots in the surface layer ejected to the print medium are not merged together.

A printing apparatus including a plurality of printing units along one guide can read test patterns printed with a plurality of types of conveying amount of a recording medium and determine a conveying amount based on the reading result.

An inkjet printer is provided, which is configured to acquire gap information related to a gap between an ink discharging surface and a recording sheet in each individual position of top-formed positions and bottom-formed positions within a predetermined wave-shape generating range, identify, when the predetermined wave-shape generating range includes a partial range in which the recording sheet is not placed, a top-formed position where the gap information has not been acquired and a bottom-formed position where the gap information has not been acquired, within the partial range, complement the unacquired gap information in the identified top-formed position with a value determined based on the respective pieces of gap information acquired in other top-formed positions, and complement the unacquired gap information in the identified bottom-formed position with a value determined based on the respective pieces of gap information acquired in other bottom-formed positions.

A printing apparatus includes a transporting section that transports a work, a printing mechanism section that has a nozzle plate that performs printing by discharging ink on the work, and a moving section that reciprocally and relatively moves the printing mechanism section in a direction intersecting the transporting direction of the work. In the printing apparatus, when the printing mechanism section moves reciprocally, printing in a forward path includes a first printing area, a second printing areas, and printing in a backward path includes a first printing area, and second printing areas. In addition, the transportation amount of the work is adjusted based on the second printing areas.

An ink jet printing apparatus includes: a conveying mechanism that moves at least one of a print medium and an ink jet head in a predetermined conveyance direction; a height information detecting unit that obtains information related to the height of the surface of the print medium; a moving mechanism that moves at least one of the ink jet head and the print medium upward and downward in the vertical direction; and a control unit that controls the ink jet head while sequentially controlling the moving mechanism accompanying conveyance by the conveying mechanism, based on the information related to the height which is detected by the height information detecting unit, thereby maintaining the distance between the print medium and the ink jet head to be within a range which is set in advance, to perform a printing process on the print medium.

A method of creating a test pattern includes: providing a printing apparatus including: a transparent ink print head configured to eject a transparent ink, a first print head configured to eject a first colored ink, and a second print head configured to eject a second colored ink; forming a base-coat on a print medium using the first colored ink; and creating a plurality of ruled lines to measure impact displacement of the transparent ink so as to form a first ruled line set formed by layering the transparent ink over the base-coat, and a second ruled line set formed outside a region corresponding to the base-coat using the second colored ink.

Systems, apparatuses, and methods may provide for technology that calibrates a printer alignment. Such calibration includes determining a tilt value for individual columns. A difference is determined between a first set of alignment values of nozzles of a first column of the trench and a second set of alignment values of nozzles of a second column of the trench. A dot offset value is determined based on the difference between the first and second set of alignment values of nozzles of the first and second columns. A top nozzle alignment value of the second column adjusted based on a difference compared against the first set of alignment values of nozzles of the first column and based on the dot offset value.

White-balance is improved when printing on colored media, while minimizing the time and use of costly materials required by present approaches. In an embodiment, the typical solid white fill or background layer is altered by including in the white layer one or more of the other colors already available in the printer to shade this layer. Thus, a small amount of cyan, for example, helps balance a pink-ish (red) media; yellow is used for blue media; and magenta is used for green media; as well as combinations thereof. A combination of transparent process inks and opaque white helps to maintain brightness (luminosity).

A method of printing an image using a printing system having first and second overlapping printhead segments. The method includes the steps of: (i) identifying a strip of the image to be printed in an overlap region of the first and second printhead segments; (ii) identifying a foreground image and a background image for image content contained in the strip; (iii) determining a seam in the foreground image; (iv) printing the foreground image using only nozzles from the first printhead segment at one side of the seam and only nozzles from the second printhead segment at the other side of the seam; and (v) printing the background image using nozzles from both the first and second printhead segments across the overlap region.

A method of creating a test pattern including a plurality of ruled lines for measuring an impact displacement in a main scanning direction includes creating the test pattern such that the test pattern includes at least three parts arranged in a sub-scanning direction of the printing apparatus, the at least three parts being selected from parts for measuring an impact displacement due to head displacement, chip displacement, round-trip displacement, column displacement, and/or position displacement.