Patent ID: 6991316
Filing Date: 2006-01-31
Classification: B41J,G06K,H04N

Abstract:
1. A printing method for conducting printing on a printing medium using a printing head in which a plurality of printing elements are arranged in a column direction, the printing being performed by scanning the printing head in a raster direction, the method comprising: an allocating step of using an A×B matrix created by combining a plurality of different M×N dot arrangements in both the raster and column directions as a minimum unit, the dot arrangements corresponding to the same level of input image data quantized into multivalued levels, and allocating the dot arrangements in the matrix to the input image data; and a printing step of forming dots on the printing medium on the basis of the dot arrangements of the matrix allocated to the input image data, wherein A kinds of dot arrangements are arranged for each raster corresponding to the input image data, a repetition sequence of the A kinds of dot arrangements in the raster direction is the same for every raster, and the dot arrangement corresponding to a starting position of the repetition sequence is different in every raster.