A liquid discharge apparatus includes a liquid discharger, a curing device, a multi-scanning device, and processing circuitry. The multi-scanning device causes the discharger to relatively scan a non-permeable recording medium multiple times in each of two intersecting directions to form an image that includes pixels with different discharge amounts of an active energy ray curable liquid in a region of the medium. The circuitry generates thinned image data for forming the image for each relative scanning in a first direction, using a mask in which pixels allowing image formation are arrayed. The circuitry generates the thinned data such that a spatial frequency of an array of the pixels allowing image formation in the mask for a first discharge amount is uniform in relative scanning in a second direction and the spatial frequency for a second discharge amount decreases toward a downstream side in the relative scanning in the second direction.

A printing method includes determining the upper limit of the amount of the ink to be discharged based on a color saturation suppression upper limit, and at least one of an overflowing suppression upper limit, a bleeding suppression upper limit, and an aggregation suppression upper limit. The determining of the upper limit of the amount of the ink to be discharged includes setting in advance priorities among the suppressing of the color saturation of the ink and at least one of the overflowing of the ink, the bleeding of the ink, and the aggregation of the ink, and determining the upper limit of the amount of the ink to be discharged based on the priorities.

A liquid discharging apparatus includes a head unit arranged in a main scanning direction includes head arrays each having nozzles discharging liquid are arranged in a sub scanning direction, a moving unit that alternately performs a main scanning operation while discharging the liquid and a sub scanning operation causing the head unit or the recording medium to move in the sub scanning direction without discharging the liquid, and a gradation setting unit that sets a first pattern setting a gradation to increase a center printing ratio at a center and decrease an end printing ratio at both ends for a whole area of the head array in the sub scanning direction and a second pattern in which a gradation is set so as to increase the printing ratio setting a gradation to increase the center printing ratio and decrease the end printing ratio for an arbitrary number of the heads.

An ink jet process is used to deposit a material layer to a desired thickness. Layout data is converted to per-cell grayscale values, each representing ink volume to be locally delivered. The grayscale values are used to generate a halftone pattern to deliver variable ink volume (and thickness) to the substrate. The halftoning provides for a relatively continuous layer (e.g., without unintended gaps or holes) while providing for variable volume and, thus, contributes to variable ink/material buildup to achieve desired thickness. The ink is jetted as liquid or aerosol that suspends material used to form the material layer, for example, an organic material used to form an encapsulation layer for a flat panel device. The deposited layer is then cured or otherwise finished to complete the process.

A recording device includes a recording head (a printing head) with multiple nozzles arranged therein to discharge droplets (ink droplets) onto a recording medium (a printing medium), and a recording controller (a printing controller) configured to control recording of a recording image, the recording including moving the recording head relative to the recording medium while the droplets are discharged. The recording controller is configured to control the recording for pixel data of the recording image that have a prescribed gray scale value or larger under conditions that a nozzle duty corresponding to the number of nozzles, included in the multiple nozzles and being able to discharge the droplets per unit area on the recording medium, is smaller than or equal to an upper limit value and that a discharge amount of the droplets discharged per the unit area is variable.

An ink printing process employs per-nozzle droplet volume measurement and processing software that plans droplet combinations to reach specific aggregate ink fills per target region, guaranteeing compliance with minimum and maximum ink fills set by specification. In various embodiments, different droplet combinations are produced through different print head/substrate scan offsets, offsets between print heads, the use of different nozzle drive waveforms, and/or other techniques. Optionally, patterns of fill variation can be introduced so as to mitigate observable line effects in a finished display device. The disclosed techniques have many other possible applications.

An image recording device and an image recording method capable of matching landing positions between droplet types in a consecutive ejection drive method are provided. The object is resolved by an image recording device in which a drive waveform for forming a dot of a small droplet is a drive waveform for ejecting a liquid droplet by a first ejection waveform element arranged in a first half of one drive cycle, and a drive waveform for forming a dot of a medium droplet is a drive waveform for ejecting the liquid droplet by the first ejection waveform element and a second ejection waveform element arranged after the first ejection waveform element in time series, and the liquid droplet ejected by the first ejection waveform element and the liquid droplet ejected by the second ejection waveform element are not combined while reaching onto a recording medium.

An image recording device and an image recording method capable of matching landing positions between droplet types in a consecutive ejection drive method are provided. The object is resolved by an image recording device in which a drive waveform for forming a dot of a small droplet is a drive waveform for ejecting a liquid droplet by a first ejection waveform element arranged in a first half of one drive cycle, and a drive waveform for forming a dot of a medium droplet is a drive waveform for ejecting the liquid droplet by the first ejection waveform element and a second ejection waveform element arranged after the first ejection waveform element in time series, and the liquid droplet ejected by the first ejection waveform element and the liquid droplet ejected by the second ejection waveform element are not combined while reaching onto a recording medium.

An ink printing process employs per-nozzle droplet volume measurement and processing software that plans droplet combinations to reach specific aggregate ink fills per target region, guaranteeing compliance with minimum and maximum ink fills set by specification. In various embodiments, different droplet combinations are produced through different printhead/substrate scan offsets, offsets between printheads, the use of different nozzle drive waveforms, and/or other techniques. These combinations can be based on repeated, rapid droplet measurements that develop understandings for each nozzle of means and spreads for expected droplet volume, velocity and trajectory, with combinations of droplets being planned based on these statistical parameters. Optionally, random fill variation can be introduced so as to mitigate Mura effects in a finished display device. The disclosed techniques have many possible applications.

An ink printing process employs per-nozzle droplet volume measurement and processing software that plans droplet combinations to reach specific aggregate ink fills per target region, guaranteeing compliance with minimum and maximum ink fills set by specification. In various embodiments, different droplet combinations are produced through different print head/substrate scan offsets, offsets between print heads, the use of different nozzle drive waveforms, and/or other techniques. Optionally, patterns of fill variation can be introduced so as to mitigate observable line effects in a finished display device. The disclosed techniques have many other possible applications.