A printed product is produced by applying at least one colored and water-containing ink to image regions on a printing material in a drop-on-demand process, applying a substantially colorless and water-containing liquid a) to non-image regions and/or b) to image regions that have little ink in a drop-on-demand process and drying the printing material. In this case, the printing material has a coating with at least one acid. After applying ink and applying the liquid, a water-containing further liquid is applied both to image regions and to non-image regions of the printing material. The first-mentioned liquid and/or the further liquid contains at least one substance for at least partly neutralizing the acid. The undesired formation of crease waves or curls and glossiness fluctuations between varnished image areas and varnished non-image areas is thus advantageously avoided.

The present invention relates to an aqueous reaction liquid composition including an anti-deforming agent. selected from the group consisting of a choline salt (formate, acetate, chloride), a guanidine salt (formate, acetate, chloride), trimethylglycine (betaine), potassium formate and ammonium nitrate. The present invention also relates to an aqueous reaction liquid composition including a Deep Eutectic Solvent (DES) having urea in combination with an anti-deforming agent as disclosed above. In another aspect the invention relates to an ink set including such aqueous reaction liquid composition and an ink composition, preferably a pigmented ink composition. In another aspect the present invention relates to a printing method including application of an aqueous reaction liquid composition according to the present invention and application of an ink composition.

A print control apparatus is configured to transfer transparent protective ink onto an image printed on a substrate. The print control apparatus includes an extraction unit configured to extract a contour of a subject in the image, and a control unit configured to generate print data for transferring the protective ink using a printing apparatus, based on the extracted contour of the subject. The control unit generates the print data by assigning a high gradation value to a contour line corresponding to the extracted contour of the subject, assigning a low gradation value to a region corresponding to the subject, and assigning a mixture of the high gradation value and the low gradation value to an outer peripheral region of the subject.

A recording data generation apparatus is provided that generates recording data in CMYK form including color information related to CMYK values and color information other than the CMYK values based on image data in RGB form including color information related to RGB values and transparency information related to transparency degree.

In this print method, assuming that the number of stacking of ink layers in a thickest portion in a thickly-piled portion is N, in a histogram preparation step ST2, a histogram of luminance values of grayscale image data prepared in an image data preparation step ST1 is prepared, and in luminance value range setting steps ST3 to ST10, a luminance value of predetermined gradations of the histogram is divided into N and N luminance value ranges are set. In the luminance value range setting steps ST3 to ST10, a division position of the luminance value of the predetermined gradations is adjusted while the histogram displayed on a predetermined display is checked.

A supporting section is disposed to confront an ejection surface and supports a recording medium. A first tank is mounted on a first-tank mount section. A liquid conveying section conveys liquid to a liquid ejecting head. A receiving section receives liquid ejected from the liquid ejecting head. A waste-liquid conveying section conveys liquid to the waste-liquid tank. A first casing holds the liquid ejecting head, the first-tank mount section, and the liquid conveying section. A second casing holds the supporting section, the receiving section, the waste-liquid tank, and the waste-liquid conveying section. The first casing is connected with the second casing such that the first casing is movable relative to the second casing. The first casing takes a first position at which the ejection surface confronts the supporting section and a second position at which the ejection surface is farther away from the supporting section than at the first position.

An image forming apparatus is provided. The image forming apparatus includes a recording head to discharge a liquid on a recording medium while scanning in a main scanning direction and a sub-scanning direction relative to the recording medium. The recording head includes a first nozzle array and a second nozzle array. The first nozzle array discharges the liquid in a first discharge amount per unit time per unit length in a longitudinal direction. The second nozzle array discharges the liquid in a second discharge amount per unit time per unit length in the longitudinal direction. The second nozzle array is shorter than the first nozzle array in the longitudinal direction and disposed not overlapped with the first nozzle array in the main scanning direction. The second discharge amount is larger than the first discharge amount.

A recording method includes first coating a treatment liquid A to a recording medium, a second coating a treatment liquid B to the recording medium after the first coating, and a discharging an ink composition including a coloring material to the recording medium by discharging from a nozzle after the second coating, and the treatment liquid A adjusts wettability of the treatment liquid B to the recording medium and includes at least any one of a resin and inorganic oxide fine particles, and the treatment liquid B thickens or insolubilizes the ink composition and includes at least any one of a polyvalent metal salt, an organic acid, and an organic acid salt.

A method of manufacturing a pattern includes providing a pattern of a first liquid on a medium, applying a powder material to the provided pattern, and providing a second liquid to the powder material applied to the first liquid.

An image processing apparatus of the present embodiment generates image data representing an image which reproduces anisotropy. The image processing apparatus of the present embodiment has a receiving unit configured to receive an input of image data having anisotropy information and a generating unit configured to generate a signal corresponding to a printing material based on the anisotropy information. The generating unit generates an ejection signal so that a first area and a second area have different smoothnesses, the first area being formed by the printing material adjacently ejected in a first direction, the second area being formed by the printing material adjacently ejected in a second direction, the second direction being different from the first direction.