Patent ID: 7695088

Claim:
An ink jet printing apparatus for forming an image on a print medium by intermittently repeating a main scan to move a print head relative to the print medium and a sub-scan to convey the print medium in a direction transverse to the main scan, the print head being structured with printing elements arranged in plurality to print dots on the print medium depending upon image data, the apparatus comprising: a sensing device which senses print density information regarding dots from the image data; a setting device which sets a speed of the main scan and a number of times of the main scans over a same image area of the print medium, depending upon the print density information; and a printing device which prints an image on the print medium in accordance with the set scan speed and number of times of scans, wherein said setting device sets the number of times of scans greater and the scan speed higher as the print density information is greater in value, and wherein said sensing device comprises a device for detecting an average value of a multi-value corresponding to the image data in a unit area in a range included in a predetermined area of a page and a device for selecting a maximum value out of detected average values and providing same as the print density information.