Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Controller
Reexamination Certificate
2002-09-11
2004-03-23
Nguyen, Lamson (Department: 2853)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Controller
C347S043000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06709082
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording method and ink jet recording device wherein inks having different permeability, such as a black ink and color ink, are discharged onto a recording medium to form images, and particularly relates to enhancement of recording speed and recording quality thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, ink jet recording methods and ink jet recording devices for performing recording on various types of recording media are widely applied to output means and so forth of various devices, due to their capability of high density and high speed recording operations.
In general, an ink jet recording device comprises recording means (recording head), a carriage for mounting ink tanks, transport means for transporting a recording medium (recording paper), and control means for controlling these units. While ink is discharged from multiple discharging orifices as a recording head for discharging ink droplets is transferred along a direction (main scanning direction) orthogonal to the transfer direction of the recording medium (sub scanning direction) so as to perform serial scanning, the recording medium is transferred intermittently at the time of non-recording by amounts equal to the width which has been recorded.
Also, since ink jet recording devices perform recording by discharging ink onto the recording medium in response to recording signals, it is known that the running costs thereof are inexpensive, and the quietness thereof is excellent. Also, in recent years, a great number of products capable of color recording have been marketed, employing a plurality of colors of inks.
With color ink jet recording devices capable of handling color recording, black ink is often used for printing characters, with sharpness, clearness, and high recording density in printing being required. In one known technique, the permeability of the black ink is reduced so as to control the infiltration of coloring matter of the black ink into the recording medium. In another known technique for color ink, the permeability of the color ink is raised so as to prevent color inks from mixing one with another on the surface of the recording medium, to prevent bleeding. Bleeding is a problem which occurs in the event that two different kinds of inks are disposed on the recording medium adjacent to each other, and the inks mix mutually at the boundary thereof, thereby degrading the quality of color images (for example, see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 55-65269).
However, when using the ink described above, the color ink is fixed in a relatively short time due to the high permeability thereof, while the black ink requires a relatively long time for drying and fixing due to the low permeability thereof. Therefore, when a subsequent recording medium is printed and discharged after a preceding recording medium is printed and discharged, the subsequent recording medium may be discharged before the black ink on the preceding recording medium has dried completely. In this case, trouble occurs wherein the recording face of the preceding recording medium and the back face of the subsequent recording medium are soiled (the phenomena wherein the recording face and back face of the recording mediums are soiled is called smearing below). This problem becomes increasingly serious as the printing speed increases. So far, the measures described below have been employed for resolving smearing.
In one measure, a method has been employed wherein a fixing device is provided for fixing the ink on the recording face of the recording device. An example of such a fixing device is a thermal fixing device, where the moisture of the ink transported thereto is dried almost completely thereby producing excellent fixing results. However, this leads to enlargement and cost increases of the recording device, and therefore the particular advantages of ink jet recording, i.e., reductions in size and cost, cannot be realized. Also, with serial printers, while the transportation of the recording medium is performed intermittently, irregularities in transfer might occur due to the processing by the fixing device.
As a second measure, a discharge paper waiting control, where the discharge of the recording medium is temporally stopped, is employed. More specifically, this control involves temporarily stopping printing of a subsequent recording medium, or temporarily stopping the discharge operation of the subsequent recording medium following the completion of printing thereof, until the preceding recording medium has dried completely following printing thereof. Such control can prevent smearing from occurring. However, in the event of performing such control, sufficient printing speed can not be achieved. Recent ink jet recording devices are capable of high speed recording such as 15 to 20 sheets per minute. Recording speed is an important element which symbolizes the performance of the device, but when performing the foregoing control, the printing speed is reduced, thereby deteriorating the performance of the device.
As a third measure, a method is employed in which high permeability color ink is placed on the black ink recording regions. In this case, since the black ink is recorded on the paper surface which has been wetted by the color ink, the black ink is easily fixed to the paper surface, and accordingly the occurrence of smearing can be prevented.
However, with this method, due to the color ink being recorded on the black ink recording regions, deterioration of the sharpness of black images and deterioration of the black character quality occur together. Also, when color ink is provided to all black data regions, a great deal of the color ink is used, which causes a problem in that the cost per print increases.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made in view of the foregoing problems of the above-described conventional art. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an ink jet recording method, an ink jet recording device, an image processing method, a program, and a recording medium, for reducing ink fixing time as well as preventing the deterioration of images recorded by low permeability ink.
In order to achieve the above objects, according to a first aspect of the present invention, an ink jet recording method which records on a recording medium by respectively discharging a first ink and a second ink from first recording means and second recording means, based on image data, wherein the first ink has a predetermined permeability with respect to the recording medium and the second ink has a permeability higher than the predetermined permeability, comprises the steps of: deciding second provision conditions of the second ink for a predetermined region of the recording medium in which the first ink is to be provided based upon information on first provision conditions of the first ink for the predetermined region; and performing recording on the recording medium according to the first provision conditions of the first ink and the second provision conditions of the second ink decided in the deciding step.
Also, according to a second aspect of the present invention, an ink jet recording method for recording on a recording medium by respectively discharging a first ink and a second ink from first recording means and second recording means, based on image data, wherein the first ink has a predetermined permeability with respect to the recording medium and the second ink has a permeability higher than the predetermined permeability, comprises the steps of: acquiring information on first provision conditions of the first ink with respect to a predetermined region of the recording medium; judging a fixing state of the first ink on the recording medium following a predetermined time period based on the information acquired in the acquiring step; deciding second provision conditions of the second ink for the predetermined region of the recording medium to which the first ink is provided; and
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