There is provided a printer including: a carriage; a head; a position sensitive detector having a light-emitter and a light-receiver; and a controller. The head has: a first nozzle from which a printing ink is discharged, and a second nozzle from which a liquid scattering a light emitted from the light-emitter is discharged. The controller is configured to execute: formation of a scattering film on the object by discharging the liquid from the second nozzle onto the object; measurement of a distance between the head and the object, with the light emitted from the light-emitter and irradiated onto the scattering film; and adjustment, based on the measured distance, of a discharging condition of discharging the ink from the first nozzle, and performing printing on the object.

A controller acquires image recording data for recording a plurality of passes; determines a first movement distance of a carriage for recording each of the plurality of passes; determines a non-usage ratio that is a ratio of a number of unused nozzles in a last pass of the plurality of passes to a total number of the plurality of nozzles arranged in a conveyance direction; determines a second movement distance in a particular pass which is recorded before the last pass, the second movement distance being a movement distance of the carriage assuming that the particular pass is recorded without using nozzles of a first ratio smaller than or equal to the non-usage ratio; and in response to determining that the second movement distance is shorter than the first movement distance, performs image recording of the particular pass without using the nozzles of the first ratio.

A printing apparatus prints an image by applying ink to a print surface of an inclined print medium using a print head. A control apparatus for the printing apparatus acquires information on an inclination of the print surface. Based on the information, printing is controlled according to a print condition corresponding to a magnitude of the inclination of the print surface.

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).

An object is to attain both a high-quality metallic color representation and suppression of a reduction in life of a nozzle. The present invention is a printing apparatus including: a conveyance unit configured to convey a printing medium in a first direction; a printing unit including a metallic array in which a plurality of printing elements for applying a metallic ink including metal particles is arrayed along the first direction and a color array in which a plurality of printing elements for applying a color ink including a color material is arrayed along the first direction; a scan unit configured to cause the printing unit to scan a plurality of times in a second direction intersecting with the first direction for a predetermined area on a printing medium; and a print control unit configured to control a printing operation so as to print a metallic color image.

A liquid discharge apparatus includes: a discharge head including nozzles; a head scanning mechanism that reciprocatingly moves the discharge head in a main scanning direction; a conveyer that conveys a recording medium in a sub-scanning direction; and a controller. In one pass, the controller executes: recording processing in which an image is formed on the recording medium by moving the discharge head in the main scanning direction and discharging liquid from the discharge head; setting processing in which the discharge head moves to a starting position of the recording processing for a subsequent pass following the one pass by changing a moving direction of the discharge head at a standstill position; and conveyance processing in which the recording medium is conveyed in the sub-scanning direction.

An image processing apparatus is configured to generate a plurality of pieces of partial printing data by executing a generating process including a color conversion process. A printing execution device performs N-th and (N+1)-th partial printing. An area in which the N-th partial printing is performed includes an overlap area, and first and second non-overlap areas respectively arranged on upstream and downstream sides, in the conveying direction, with respect to the overlap area. In the overlap area, dots are formed by both the N-th and (N+1)-th partial printings. The color conversion process includes a first converting process for the first non-overlap area with reference to a first profile, a second converting process for the second non-overlap area with reference to a second profile, and a third converting process for the overlap area, the third converting process being different from both the first and second converting process.

In response to determining that a code image is to be formed such that a particular direction is same as a scanning direction, a controller performs divided recording processing of controlling a head and a carriage to: (a) record a plurality of first portions with liquid ejected from the head during a first movement of the head in the scanning direction; and (b) record a plurality of second portions with liquid ejected from the head during a second movement of the head in the scanning direction. The plurality of second portions are located at an at least partially different position from the plurality of first portions with respect to a conveyance direction. The second movement is a movement in a direction opposite the first movement. The second movement is performed after the first movement without performing conveyance processing between the first movement and the second movement.

A controller determines whether a first direction is perpendicular to an extending direction of a straight line portion in a boundary between recorded and non-recorded regions; determines whether a recording resolution in the first direction is lower than an image resolution; in response to determining that the first direction is perpendicular to the extending direction and that the recording resolution is lower than the image resolution, determines whether at least part of a predicted landing region is located outside a reference line; and in response to determining that the at least part of the predicted landing region is located outside the reference line, controls a head and a carriage to adjust ejection timing of an ink droplet forming the edge of the straight line portion such that a protruding area of an actual landing region of the ink droplet is smaller than a protruding area of the predicted landing region.

A controller determines an original conveyance distance; determines whether a particular code image is to be recorded on a recording medium; when the particular code image is to be recorded, determines, based on the image data and on identification information of a defective ejection port, whether the first region is to be formed with liquid ejected from the defective ejection port assuming that the medium is conveyed by the original conveyance distance; when the first region is to be formed with liquid ejected from the defective ejection port, determines a shortened conveyance distance such that the defective ejection port is located at a position corresponding to a second region with respect to the conveyance direction; performs shortened conveyance processing of controlling the conveyor to convey the medium in the conveyance direction by the shortened conveyance distance; and controls the carriage and the head to record the image on the medium.