Printing methods and systems are described herein. In one example, a method includes rasterizing a document to create color rasters and linearizing the color rasters to create high drop weight (HDW) planes and low drop weight (LDW) planes. HDW and LDW halftone planes are created from the HDW and LDW planes. The HDW and LDW halftone planes are masked to create HDW and LDW printhead maps, and the HDW and LDW printhead maps are merged into print data. The print data is sent to a number of printheads.

MTF characteristics of a concavo-convex forming apparatus change depending on the amount of amplitude of input data, the operation condition of the apparatus, etc., and therefore, it is not possible to form a concavo-convex shape with good characteristics only by applying the MTF correction technique widely known in the image processing field. A concavo-convex forming apparatus including an input unit configured to input concavo-convex data representing concavo-convex of an object to be printed, and a correction unit configured to perform correction in accordance with a plurality of frequency band of the input concavo-convex data and whose intensity is made higher for the larger amplitude on the input concavo-convex data based on frequency response characteristics in a case where concavo-convex is formed on a printing medium.

An image forming apparatus includes a head unit that moves in a predetermined scanning direction and on which a first nozzle which discharges first ink including a black color material, a second nozzle which discharges second ink having higher brightness than that of the first ink, and a third nozzle which discharges third ink having higher brightness than that of the first ink are arrayed in the scanning direction, and a control portion. The control portion is set to perform a conversion processing which sets a type and amount of the ink which is discharged from the head unit according to color data included in the image data and use the first ink, the second ink, and the third ink according to the color data of the darkest point in the conversion processing.

An ink jet recording method includes: a step of forming an image by ejecting liquid droplets of an aqueous color ink to a recording medium; and a step of forming a coating ink layer by ejecting liquid droplets of an aqueous coating ink on the image, and in the ink jet recording method described above, the aqueous color ink is ejected in the form of a plurality of liquid droplets having different liquid droplet amounts per one droplet, and the aqueous coating ink is ejected to have a liquid droplet amount per one droplet smaller than a liquid droplet amount of a smallest liquid droplet of the aqueous color ink.

A printed matter creating device includes a controller configured to: acquire print data; form a first print on a printing medium while conveying the printing medium, the first print being based on first ON dots in the acquired print data; interrupt the conveyance of the printing medium after forming the first print; cut the printing medium after interrupting the conveyance; and form a second print on the printing medium while conveying the printing medium after cutting the printing medium, the second print being based on second ON dots in the acquired print data. The print data includes a specific print data corresponding to a connecting part connecting the first print and the second print. Based on the acquired print data, the controller adjusts at least one of: aspects of the first ON dots in the specific print data; and aspects of the second ON dots in the specific print data.

An ink discharge operation adjustment method includes the following, recording a halftone image in which the ink is discharged to form a predetermined halftone pattern and a solid image in which the ink completely covers a surface of the recording medium; obtaining a first reading result by a reader reading a non-recording region in which an image is not recorded on a recording medium; obtaining a second reading result of the halftone image and the solid image so that a difference of an elapsed time from a start of the curing to the reading is within a predetermined reference difference; obtaining coverage rate information based on the reading results; and performing setting regarding adjustment of a droplet amount of the ink based on the coverage rate information.

A droplet ejecting device includes: a head including N-number drive elements; a driving circuit including N-number waveform signal selectors and N-number power supply circuit selectors; a plurality of power supply circuits connected to the driving circuit; and a control circuit. Each waveform signal selector selects a waveform signal to be outputted to the corresponding drive element from among a plurality of types of waveform signals. Each power supply circuit selectors selects a power supply circuit to be connected to the drive elements from among the plurality of power supply circuits. The control circuit serially transmits, to the driving circuit via a single control line: N-number items of waveform signal designation information each of which designates the waveform signal to be outputted to the corresponding drive element; and N-number items of power supply designation information each of which designates the power supply circuit to be connected to the corresponding drive element.

A printing system is disclosed. The printing system includes at least one physical memory device to store drop size logic and one or more processors coupled with the at least one physical memory device to execute the drop size logic to generate drop size data associated with a printing system based on ink deposition data for a print medium and ink drop count data.

A method of printing, the method comprising: monitoring operation of first nozzles of a first nozzle array, and if malfunction of a number of first nozzles of the first nozzle array is detected, setting a number of second nozzles of a second nozzle array to a compensation mode. Monitoring operation of the number of second nozzles in the compensation mode and, in response to detecting that a printing parameter of the number of second nozzles differs from a reference printing parameter, adjusting an operation mode parameter of a subset of second nozzles.

In an image processing device, a controller performs: acquiring target image data representing a target image; inputting first and second datasets into a machine learning model and causing the machine learning model to output first and second partial dot data; and generating dot data specifying a dot formation state for each of a plurality of pixels in a print image corresponding to the target image using the first and second partial dot data. The first dataset includes first partial image data and a first value for an input parameter. The second dataset includes second partial image data and a second value for the input parameter. The machine learning model outputs the second partial dot data different from the first partial dot data according to the second value being different from the first value even when the second partial image data is identical to the first partial image data.