Patent ID: 7396095

Claim:
An ink jet printing apparatus for forming an image by ejecting ink from a print head onto a print medium, wherein the print head has arrayed in nozzle columns at least a plurality of large nozzles and a plurality of small nozzles, each of the large nozzles ejecting a larger volume of ink per single ejection than each of the small nozzles ejects per single ejection, and the large nozzles and small nozzles eject ink supplied from a common ink chamber, the ink jet printing apparatus comprising: preliminary ejection means for performing ink ejections, not involved in the formation of an image, from the nozzles of the print head; suction means for sucking out ink from the print head through the nozzles of the print head; and control means for causing said suction means to suck out ink from the print head and then causing said preliminary ejection means to perform the ink ejections, wherein, in an ink ejection operation by said preliminary ejection means following the suction of ink by said suction means, said control means causes the nozzles of the same size to eject ink simultaneously and controls to set the number of ejections from the large nozzles to be greater than the number of ejections from the small nozzles.