Patent ID: 8376490

Claim:
An image forming apparatus forming an image by causing liquid droplets to be ejected from a plurality of nozzles of a recording head based on image data, the image forming apparatus comprising: a recording head driving part configured to drive the recording head; a common driving signal generation part configured to generate a common driving signal; and a data transfer part configured to transfer the image data and control data to the recording head driving part, wherein the recording head driving part includes a storage part configured to capture, in synchronization with a mask pattern transfer clock signal, mask pattern transfer data to mask a predetermined one or more of a plurality of different driving signals of the common driving signal provided by the common driving signal generation part, the mask pattern transfer data being included in the control data; and a mask pattern latching part configured to latch the mask pattern transfer data and generate a mask pattern signal to mask the common driving signal, and to selectively perform one of a plurality of control operations other than latching on the mask pattern transfer data stored in the storage part, based on a combination of a value of the mask pattern transfer data and a value of the mask pattern transfer clock signal, when the mask pattern latching part is caused to enter a latching state.