Patent ID: 7198347

Claim:
A print control apparatus that supplies print data to a printing device, which creates dots and thereby carries out printing, said printing device comprising: a print head having multiple nozzles, from which ink is ejected; a scanning module that carries out main scan and sub-scan of said print head; and a driving module that drives said print head during each scan and causes at least two different types of dots, a first dot and a second dot, to be created at different timings in respective pixels, said print control apparatus comprising: a test pattern data generation module that generates test pattern data as the print data used for printing a test pattern, wherein the test pattern data comprises: a patch pattern which defines a dot placement status of each of the pixels forming an arrangement of substantially equal numbers of first dots and second dots in a first area having a higher density of the first dot than a density of the second dot and in a second area having a higher density of the second dot than a density of the first dot, wherein the first area and the second area have a substantially equivalent size and are mixed in a main scanning direction and in a sub-scanning direction, and timing data; wherein the driving module drives the print head and the scanning module to print at least one test pattern based on the test pattern data, and wherein the appearance of the printed test pattern varies with a variation of the timing data.