A high-gloss, precise and vivid image is printed appropriately. The printing method performs a printing using a color ink on a medium, and includes: a color ink layer forming step of ejecting the color ink to a medium to form a layer of the color ink, that is, a colored ink layer on the medium; and a glossing step of performing a process for increasing a gloss of the colored ink layer. The color ink includes a colorant and a solvent and generates heat by radiation of an energy ray. In the color ink layer forming step, the energy ray is emitted to the color ink adhering to the medium to remove by evaporation at least a part of the solvent included in the color ink. In the glossing step, the gloss of the colored ink layer is increased after a part of the solvent is removed by evaporation.

A printed matter comprising a substrate and an ink jet image layer formed on the substrate, in which the ink jet image layer comprises a coloring material and a fluorine resin.

A liquid composition contains a coloring material, an organic solvent, a compound represented by Chemical Formula 1 below, a resin, and water, wherein the contact angle of water against a liquid composition film formed by attaching the liquid composition to a non-permeable printing medium is 60 degrees or less, ##STR00001## where n represents an integer of from 4 to 10.

A recording apparatus includes an ink application unit configured to apply ink to a transfer body, a first application unit configured to apply a first treatment liquid over an area on the transfer body, a second application unit configured to apply a second treatment liquid to the transfer body, a heating unit configured to heat the second treatment liquid applied to the transfer body, and a transfer unit configured to transfer the ink image, wherein a ratio of the second treatment liquid to the first treatment liquid on an outside of ink portion is determined according to the recording medium.

A method for creating controlled scattering effects including (a) disposing at least one curable ink layer onto a substrate in an imagewise fashion or in a continuous film fashion; (b) applying a first cure to partially cure the ink layer (a); (c) disposing at least one scattering material onto the ink layer (a); and (d) applying a second cure to fully cure the ink layer (a); wherein the first cure and the second cure are applied in a manner to control the disposition of the scattering material on top of and penetration into the curable ink layer to control surface and subsurface scattering properties.

An ink jet textile printing composition set of the invention includes an ink jet textile printing ink composition and a penetrant. The ink jet textile printing ink composition contains a fluorescent dye and water, and the penetrant contains a compound having a lactam structure and water.

An ink jet recording method includes attaching ink by ejecting an ink composition from a head to attach to a recording region of a recording medium, and drying by heating the recording medium to which the ink composition is attached, in which the ink composition is a water-based ink composition including a resin and an amide compound represented by General Formula (1) as an organic solvent, and the drying dries the organic solvent in the recording region of the recording medium to be 2.0 mg/inch.sup.2 or less.

##STR00001##

In Formula (1), R.sup.1 represents a linear or branched alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms; R.sup.2 and R.sup.3s represent each independently H or a linear or branched alkyl group having 1 to 4 carbon atoms.

A recording apparatus includes an ink applying unit which applies, based on image data, ink containing coloring material, on a recording medium to record an image for the image data; a treatment-solution applying unit which applies treatment solution containing acid for agglomerating components in the ink, at and around an ink application position on the recording medium; a neutralizing unit which applies neutralizing solution for neutralizing the acid, on the recording medium on which the treatment solution and the ink have been applied; and a determining unit which, based on the image data and position data for application of the treatment solution, determines a neutralizing-solution application region so that only at least a part of a region in which only the treatment solution is applied on the recording medium is set as the neutralizing-solution application region. The neutralizing unit applies the neutralizing solution in the determined neutralizing-solution application region.

A recording method includes: ejecting colored ink compositions that include a cyan ink composition, a magenta ink composition, a yellow ink composition, and a special color ink composition with a hue angle different from hue angles of the respective ink compositions from an ink jet head and causing the ink compositions to adhere to a recording medium; and causing a processing solution containing a coagulant for coagulating constituents of the colored ink compositions to adhere to the recording medium, the causing of the ink compositions to adhere is performed by performing scanning, in which the colored ink compositions are ejected while a relative position of the ink jet head with respect to the recording medium is changed in a scanning direction, a plurality of times, and a maximum distance of scanning performed once in the causing of the ink compositions to adhere is equal to or greater than 50 cm.

A recording method includes: ejecting colored ink compositions that include a light colored ink composition and a dark colored ink composition that belong to a same color system and have different color density from an ink jet head and causing the ink compositions to adhere to a recording medium; and causing a processing solution that contains a coagulant for coagulating constituents of the colored ink compositions to adhere to the recording medium, the causing of the ink compositions to adhere is performed by performing scanning, in which the colored ink compositions are ejected while a relative position of the ink jet head with respect to the recording medium is changed in a scanning direction, a plurality of times, and a width in the scanning direction of the recording medium is equal to or greater than 50 cm.