An image forming apparatus includes a liquid discharge device and processing circuitry. The liquid discharge device includes at least one nozzle group, where N represents an integer, to discharge liquid. The processing circuitry causes the first nozzle group to discharge in a first scan, causes the second nozzle group to discharge in a second scan, and causes the N-th nozzle group to discharge in an N-th scan to form a complete image. The processing circuitry, with respect to an image completion rate indicating a rate of an image formed by each of the first nozzle group to the N-th nozzle group in the complete image, sets the image completion rate of a portion of the first nozzle group adjacent to the second nozzle group in the sub-scanning direction to be not higher than the image completion rate of any one of the second nozzle group to the N-th nozzle group.

A system and method for ejecting one or more fluids from a digital dispense device. The method includes a) inputting to a memory a volume per unit area for each of the one or more fluids to be ejected from the digital dispense device; b) matching the volume per unit area to a device resolution for the digital dispense device; c) formatting fluid ejectors for the digital dispense device for the device resolution; and d) ejecting fluid from the digital dispense device to provide the volume per area for each of the one or more fluids.

A substrate processing apparatus and a substrate processing method are provided, which can improve the yield by minimizing the occurrence of stains. The substrate processing method includes forming on the substrate a plurality of ink patterns spaced apart from each other by jetting ink onto the substrate by using a plurality of nozzles, calculating the density of each of the plurality of ink patterns, and selecting at least one nozzle for jetting ink into one pixel area based on respectively calculated densities of the plurality of ink patterns.

A liquid discharging apparatus includes: a discharging head configured to discharge an ultraviolet cure ink onto a recording medium; and a controller configured to control the discharging head to: discharge the ink onto the recording medium on the basis of a raster data for an image to be formed on the recording medium, the image including a solid image area formed with the raster data at 100% of a printing rate; and execute a gloss reduction printing in which the solid image area is printed on the recording medium by varying the printing rate such that printing rates lower than 100% appear along a printing direction periodically or aperiodically in the course of 100% printing rate.

Provided is an ink jet recording method in which an image is formed by applying an ink containing a coloring material and a processing liquid containing a flocculant to a surface of a recording medium by a droplet discharge device to coalescence, wherein an application amount of the processing liquid is changed in accordance with an application amount of the ink for each unit area, and is controlled to be 5 g/m.sup.2 or less in all of the unit areas in which the images are formed, and when the image is formed in a plurality of printing passes, an average value of the application amounts of the processing liquid in each printing pass in the unit areas in which the application amount of the processing liquid is 0.8 g/m.sup.2 or more is controlled so that a deviation when compared between the printing passes is within ±30%.

A liquid discharge apparatus includes a head and circuitry. The head discharges liquid to apply the liquid to an application surface. The circuitry controls discharge of the liquid from the head based on a vertical height of an application position at which the liquid is applied on the application surface.

A liquid ejecting device includes a liquid ejecting unit and a control unit configured to control ejection of liquid. A plurality of types of liquid include a first ink group that is capable of expressing a different color by mixing a plurality of color inks each other and a second ink capable of singly expressing a color of the same system as that of the different color. The control unit is capable of forming a first color mixture pattern and a second color mixture pattern that uses a greater amount of the first ink group than that of the first color mixture pattern to eject the first ink group, is capable of forming a monochrome pattern to eject the second ink, and forms a patch the second color mixture pattern that is adjacent to the first color mixture pattern and the monochrome pattern.

A printer includes an ejecting head, and a printing control section, in which the ejecting head ejects ink onto the sheet while performing scanning of a plurality of times with respect to a predetermined raster line which extends in the scanning direction. In addition, the printing control section sets a nozzle use rate of a first complementing nozzle which is higher than a nozzle use rate in normal operation as a nozzle use rate of a complementing nozzle which ejects ink to a pixel to which a defective nozzle should eject ink on the sheet, instead of the defective nozzle, when the defective nozzle is detected, and sets a nozzle use rate of a second complementing nozzle which is lower than that of the first complementing nozzle as a nozzle use rate of a supplementary complementing nozzle which is the peripheral nozzle of the complementing nozzle.

Mask entries for each of a plurality of passes over which print fluid drops are to be dispensed for printing an image are generated based on different types of masks and based on image data for the image. Print fluid drop dispensation for a pixel for which the mask entries for a given pass specify repeated print fluid drop dispensation is moved to a mask entry for an adjacent pass that does not specify print fluid drop dispensation for the pixel. Ejection of print fluid to print the image is caused based on the generated mask entries.

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.