Patent ID: 7604318

Claim:
An ink-jet recording apparatus comprising sub-tanks that store a plurality of colors of ink; a recording head that includes a plurality of ejection nozzle groups each comprising a plurality of ink ejection portions, each of the ink ejection portions comprising a plurality of ejection nozzles which selectively eject one of the plurality of colors of ink inside a respective one of the sub-tanks to a recording medium; an image recording control device that selects a first one of the plurality of ejection nozzle groups for image recording onto the recording medium; and a non-ejection status detection device that detects whether any ejection nozzle of the first one of the plurality of nozzle groups is in a non-ejection state, and when the non-ejection status detection device detects that one of the ejection nozzles of the first one of the plurality of nozzle groups is in a non-ejection state, the image recording control device deselects the first one of the plurality of rejection nozzle groups from image recording and selects a second one of the plurality of ejection nozzle groups for image recording, wherein the second one of the plurality of ejection nozzle groups does not include any of the plurality of ejection nozzles which are in the first one of the plurality of ejection nozzle groups.