Patent ID: 6932454

Claim:
An ink jet image recording apparatus for recording an image on a recording medium using a recording head having a plurality of recording elements arranged in a predetermined direction, said apparatus comprising: a main-scan means for relatively main scanning the recording head with respect to the recording medium in a direction different from the predetermined direction; and a shift means for relatively shifting the recording head and the recording medium by an amount smaller than the width of the recording element arrangement in the predetermined direction for each main scanning; a recording control means for controlling the recording head in such a manner that a region on the recording medium recordable by a single scanning is completed by a plural number of main scannings, said recording control means dividing image data into image data corresponding to each of the plural number of main scannings, and recording being executed by using different recording elements with respect to each of the plural number of main scannings for the region recordable by a single recording element in the main-scanning direction; and a setting means for setting any one of a plurality of different numbers as the number of main scannings with respect to the area controlled by said recording control means, wherein an amount of recording data to be recorded by a single main scanning becomes smaller and the amount of recording data recorded by each of printing elements by the single main scanning becomes smaller as a number of main scannings set by said setting means increases.