According to one embodiment, a liquid dispensing apparatus includes a mounting unit configured to hold a liquid discharging apparatus that discharges liquid from nozzles simultaneously by an operation of an actuator. An inspection media placement region is provided on which an inspection medium can be placed to receive the liquid discharged from the liquid discharging apparatus. A controller is configured to control the actuator to vary a volume of the liquid discharged from each nozzle for a nozzle inspection operation. The volume is varied according to a predetermined distance between adjacent nozzles that simultaneously discharge liquid and a predetermined contact angle for a droplet of the liquid when on the inspection medium.

A networked product imaging system includes devices that provide the production of imaged goods. Sellers are easily integrated into the network with minimal or no inventory requirements. Customer requirements are provided to a central computing device (CCD) that has two-way communication with a plurality of geographically separated product image forming devices. The central computing device determines specifications for forming the image on the blank product in accordance with the customer's order. The central computing device selects a product image forming device from the plurality of geographically separated product forming devices for fulfilling the order, based upon factors that include the specification of the product image forming device available, the product image forming inventory and the blank product inventory available at the geographic location of the product image forming device. The selected product image forming device forms the image on the blank product at the remote location.

Provided is an ink jet recording method including recording an infrared absorbing image by applying a first ink, which contains an infrared absorber and a first curable compound, onto an impermeable substrate by an ink jet method, semi-curing the infrared absorbing image by irradiating the infrared absorbing image with active energy rays, recording a non-infrared absorbing image by applying a second ink, which has a content of the infrared absorber of lower than 0.1% by mass and contains a second curable compound, to a surface of the substrate with the infrared absorbing image by the ink jet method, and curing the semi-cured infrared absorbing image and the non-infrared absorbing image by irradiating these images with active energy rays.

The image processing apparatus of the present invention includes: an image data acquisition unit configured to acquire image data; a generation unit configured to generate an ejection pattern of ink droplets from the image data, which are ejected for forming dots from a plurality of nozzles of an image forming apparatus; a characteristic acquisition unit configured to acquire an ejection characteristic of ink droplets of the image forming apparatus; and a pattern change processing unit configured to change the ejection pattern based on the ejection characteristic and the ejection pattern, and the pattern change processing unit repeatedly performs, in a case where a gap occurs between dots that should be formed so as to contact each other by the image forming apparatus, the ejection pattern change until the gap is eliminated.

An image processing device configured to: determine whether a specific condition indicating ink supplied from an ink supplier to a printing head may be delayed; generate dot data by using image data, including: generating first dot data when the specific condition is not satisfied; and generating second dot data when the specific condition is satisfied, a ratio of first/second type of dots included in an image based on specific second dot data generated using specific image data being greater/smaller than that included in an image based on specific first dot data generated using the specific image data, and total number of dots included in the image based on the specific second dot data being larger that included in the image based on the specific first dot data; and output printing data based on the dot data.

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 image processing device causing a printing execution unit to: in a first case where a specific condition indicating that ink supply from an ink supply unit to a printing head may be delayed in partial printing is not satisfied, print a partial image by single partial printing; in a second case where the specific condition is satisfied, print the partial image by partial printings including a first partial printing and a second partial printing; in the first case, form a dot having a specific size by the single partial printing, as a dot corresponding to a specific pixel in the partial image; and in the second case, form a dot having a size smaller than the specific size by the first partial printing and form a dot having a size smaller than the specific size by the second partial printing, as the dot corresponding to the specific pixel.

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.

A liquid discharge head includes a plurality of discharge holes, a plurality of pressurizing units, a plurality of drive circuits, a switch circuit, and first and second control circuits. The drive signals include a first signal for a pixel of a first size and a second drive signal for a pixel of a second size. The second control circuit controls the switch circuit so that each of the plurality of pressurizing units is connected to the drive circuit outputting the first signal when a droplet forming the pixel of the first size is discharged and is connected to the drive circuit outputting the second signal when a droplet forming the pixel of the second size is discharged. The first control circuit controls the drive circuits so that the drive circuits in charge of outputting the first signal is changed among the plurality of drive circuits.

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).