Patent ID: 7585045

Claim:
An image forming method of ejecting liquid droplets containing coloring material toward a recording medium from nozzles including main nozzles and subsidiary nozzles of nozzle rows of a recording head while causing relative movement between the recording medium and the recording head in a relative movement direction that is substantially perpendicular to a direction of alignment of the nozzles of each of the nozzle rows in such a manner that an image is formed by the coloring material on the recording medium, wherein the nozzle rows include first and second nozzle rows which have the main nozzles corresponding to a same coloring material of a particular color and at least one subsidiary nozzle row which includes the subsidiary nozzles corresponding to the same coloring material of the particular color; the first and second nozzle rows and the at least one subsidiary nozzle row are respectively arranged at different positions in terms of the relative movement direction; the at least one subsidiary nozzle row is disposed between the first and second nozzle rows; and the subsidiary nozzles are arranged in such a manner that positions of the subsidiary nozzles projected on a straight line in the direction of alignment of the nozzles of each of the nozzle rows are different from positions of the main nozzles projected on the straight line, and wherein the image forming method includes: a measurement step of measuring an amount of inclination of the recording head with respect to the relative movement direction; a correction judgment step of judging whether or not correction is necessary according to the amount of inclination measured in the measurement step; and a correction step of carrying out droplet ejection from at least a portion of the subsidiary nozzles, in place of droplet ejection from at least a portion of the main nozzles when judgment is made, in the correction judgment step, that the correction is necessary, so that the correction is performed.