Patent ID: 8672438

Claim:
A printing device comprising: pigment ink nozzles arranged to discharge pigment ink to form pigment ink dots on a print medium; dye ink nozzles arranged to discharge dye ink to form dye ink dots on a print medium; and a nozzle control unit arranged to control sizes of the pigment ink dots and the dye ink dots by controlling ink quantities discharged from the pigment ink nozzles and the dye ink nozzles, the nozzle control unit being arranged to perform a first printing process for forming pigment ink dot rows and dye ink dot rows adjacent to each other by causing the pigment ink nozzles to form the pigment ink dots and then causing the dye ink nozzles to form the dye ink dots adjacent to the pigment ink dots, and a second printing process for forming the dye ink dot rows and the pigment ink dot rows adjacent to each other by causing the dye ink nozzles to form the dye ink dots and then causing the pigment ink nozzles to form the pigment ink dots adjacent to the dye ink dots, the nozzle control unit being arranged to form a printed image including first and second printed image areas formed respectively by the first and second printing processes, when the nozzle control unit forms a first type of ink dots selected in advance from between two types of ink dots including the pigment ink dots and the dye ink dots in the first or second printing process, the nozzle control unit being arranged to perform a dot size adjustment process in which the size of the first type of ink dots is not varied when the size of a second type of ink dots adjacent to the first type of ink dots is smaller than a preset size, and the size of the first type of ink dots is varied when the size of the second type of ink dots is equal to or greater than the preset size.