Patent ID: 7188920

Claim:
An image recording apparatus comprising: a carriage; a scanning unit which moves the carriage in relation to a recording medium; a recording head which is mounted on the carriage and which ejects ink in accordance with energy for ink ejection applied thereto, the recording head ejecting ink while the carriage moves in relation to the recording medium so as to record an image on the recording medium; a moving distance measuring unit which measures a relative moving distance of the carriage in relation to the recording medium; a temperature detection unit which detects a temperature of the recording head; and a control unit; wherein the control unit comprises: an ink drop counting unit which counts a number of ink drops ejected from the recording head; and an operating portion, which calculates: (i) when the carriage moves a predetermined distance in relation to the recording medium, an image recording duty based on the relative moving distance of the carriage measured by the moving distance measuring unit and the number of ink drops ejected from the recording head counted by the ink drop counting unit while the carriage moves the measured relative moving distance, and (ii) a reference image recording duty, corresponding to the calculated image recording duty, based on a detection result of the temperature detection unit; wherein the operating portion compares a value of the reference image recording duty with a value of the calculated image recording duty; and wherein the control unit controls the ink ejection energy applied to the recording head in accordance with a result of the comparison by the operating portion.