Patent ID: 7922277
Filing Date: 2011-04-12
Classification: B41J

Abstract:
1. A printing method comprising: printing, on a medium, a correction pattern that is made of a plurality of lines, said plurality of lines being formed by repeating in alternation a dot forming operation of forming dots on the medium by ejecting ink from a plurality of nozzles that move in a predetermined movement direction, and a transporting operation of transporting said medium in an intersecting direction that intersects said movement direction; measuring, for each line of said correction pattern, the darkness of a plurality of pixels located on a same line of said correction pattern; obtaining, for each line of said correction pattern, a correction value for correcting a darkness, in said intersecting direction, of an image to be printed based on the darkness of said plurality of pixels that has been measured; setting, for each line of said image, said correction value that has been obtained; correcting, for each line of said image, a gradation value of each pixel data based on said correction value that has been set for each line of said image; and forming, in said dot forming operation, dots of a corresponding line based on said corrected gradation values, wherein a plurality of types of processing modes are provided for executing print processing, in which said transporting operation is different from that in another print processing, the processing modes including an end processing mode for printing an end portion of said medium and an intermediate processing mode for printing an intermediate portion of said medium; wherein in obtaining said correction value, at least two correction patterns respectively corresponding to said end processing mode and said intermediate processing mode are printed on said medium respectively by said end processing mode and said intermediate processing mode, and said correction value is obtained for each processing mode; and wherein a portion of said medium where the correction pattern corresponding to said end processing mode is printed is closer to an edge of said medium than a portion of said medium where the correction pattern corresponding to said intermediate processing mode is printed.