Patent Application
20160144630
1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure generally relates to recording and, more particularly, to a recording apparatus, a recording system, and a recording method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various objects have attributes that can be expressed by subjective quantities of sense, such as color, smell, and tactile feeling. At the same time, objects also have an attribute of complex feelings expressed as a texture. Regarding a texture related to a recorded matter, such an attribute often refer to textures like color tone and glossiness of a recorded matter, and a surface shape and a material of a recording medium (hereafter, referred to as “texture”). In a recorded matter recorded, for example, by inkjet recording, a texture of the recording medium itself contributes greatly to a texture of the final recorded matter.
In the inkjet recording in which an image is recorded with ink, ejected from a recording head, applied to a recording medium and forming dots, user's ideas and artistic quality can be expressed by forming images on various recording media by taking advantage of the non-contact recording. As described above, recording media of various textures is sold in the market because the texture of the recording medium contributes greatly to the texture of the final recorded matter. Recording media with unique texture for inkjet printing, such as Japanese paper and canvas, also exist. What kind of expression is performed on the recorded matter is related closely to what kind of recording medium is to be selected and, therefore, selection of the recording medium is important for the user's creative expression.
A texture is recognized as a combination of various feelings, and the recognized texture is dependent on the combined feeling elements. Hereinafter, a texture refers to that resulting from glossiness or surface roughness contributing greatly to an appearance of a recorded matter.
In the related art recording with an inkjet recording apparatus using aqueous ink, recording while changing a texture of a recording medium has been difficult. However, as methods for changing glossiness and textures to an extent that a texture of a recording medium is changed, methods using UV ink (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-40837) or electrophotographic toner control (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2011-180391) are known. These techniques, however, need to make the thickness of coated layers different to considerable degrees, and products to which these techniques can be applied are very expensive. In the related art aqueous inkjet recording apparatuses, making textures related to glossiness different has been tried, and a method for making glossiness different is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-213271.
Although it is possible to make glossiness different, the range of glossiness controllable in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-213271 is limited. The present disclosure has found a method for forming an image with a greater difference in glossiness and with a matt texture on a recording medium compared with those of the related art methods.
The present disclosure forms an image with a more matt texture on a recording medium.
An aspect of the present disclosure provides a recording apparatus which includes a first application unit provided with a nozzle for ejecting color ink and configured to eject the color ink from the nozzle to apply to a recording medium to record an image on the recording medium, and a second application unit configured to apply a substantially transparent adjusting liquid to the recording medium to adjust a degree of surface roughness of the image formed on the recording medium, wherein after the adjusting liquid is applied to a first region of the recording medium by a predetermined times of relative movement between the second application unit and the recording medium, a relative movement between the first application unit and the recording medium for applying the color ink to the first region is started.
Further features of the present disclosure will become apparent from the following description of exemplary embodiments with reference to the attached drawings.
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present disclosure are described in detail. Before describing specific embodiments of the present disclosure, glossiness and a matt texture based thereon in the embodiment are described.
Glossiness of a recording medium is controlled in the embodiments of the present disclosure. Glossiness is evaluated in the gloss value, haze, and image clarity. Objects with glossiness can be evaluated with these indices.
The gloss value and haze are evaluated by using B-4632 (Japan name: Micro Haze Plus) manufactured by BYK-Gardner. The gloss value is detected at 1.8° at an opening width of the detector according to the central axis of the reflected light, and the haze is detected in the range up to ±2.7° outside thereof. In the measurement of reflected light, the gloss value is defined by reflectance, with respect to incident light, of regular reflection light which forms the central axis of the regular reflection light, and haze is defined by measured scattered light produced in the vicinity thereof.
Image clarity, representing clearness of an image recorded on a recording medium, is measured, for example using JIS H8686 “image clarity measuring method on anodic oxide coating of aluminum and aluminum alloy.” If, for example, an image of illumination on a recording medium is blurred, a value of image clarity becomes low.
In the present disclosure, providing a glossy recording medium with a matt texture is referred to as “providing a matt texture.” Providing a matt texture indicates lowering in gloss intensity or the value of gloss image clarity when the glossiness of a recording medium is measured using a commercially available gloss measurement apparatus. Regarding reflected light of light incident on paper, a ratio of a regular reflection light component is high if the gloss value is high, whereas a ratio of a diffuse light component is high if the paper is matt. This means that above-described haze is large in amount.
Here, an exemplary inkjet recording apparatus in which the present disclosure is implementable is described.
A recording method of the embodiment of the present disclosure is implementable in the recording apparatus as illustrated in
In this embodiment, the ink reservoir and recording head 1 integrally form a print head cartridge 6, which is mounted on a carriage 5.
The carriage 5 is made to reciprocate in arrow A1 and A2 directions (i.e., the main scanning direction) along a guide shaft 3 and a guide rail 4 when driving force of a carriage motor 11 is transmitted to the carriage 5 via a timing belt 17. During the movement of the carriage, the carriage position is detected by an encoder sensor 21 provided in the carriage 5 reading a linear scale 19 provided along the moving direction of the carriage. With the reciprocation, recording on the recording medium is started. A recording medium S2 is supplied from the feed tray 12, held between a conveyance roller 16 and a pinch rollers 15, and is conveyed to a platen 2.
When recording for one scanning event is performed while the recording head 1 is moved in the A1 direction together with the carriage 5, the conveyance roller 16 is driven by a conveyance motor 13 via the linear wheel 20. Then the recording medium S2 is conveyed a predetermined amount in the arrow B direction, which is a sub-scanning direction (i.e., a recording medium conveyance direction). The sub-scanning direction crosses the main scanning direction (in this example, crosses perpendicularly). Then, recording is performed on the recording medium S2 while the carriage 5 is scanned in the A2 direction. In this manner, recording is performed during alternate conveyance of the recording medium and scanning of the carriage. As illustrated in
When recording for one sheet of recording medium is completed by repeating the above operation, the recording medium is discharged and recording for one sheet is completed.
The controller 100 is a main control unit which includes, for example, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) 101 in the form of a microcomputer, read-only memory (ROM) 103, and random access memory (RAM) 105. The ROM 103 stores a dot arrangement pattern, a mask pattern, and other fixed data. The RAM 105 provides a region in which recording data is deployed, or a work space. The ASIC 101 reads a program from the ROM 103 and executes a series of processes until the recording data is recorded on the recording medium. The head driver 140 drives the recording head 5 in accordance with the recording data. The motor driver 150 drives the carriage motor 11, and the motor driver 160 drives the conveyance motor 13.
A host apparatus 110 is a supply source of image data, and which may be a computer that generates data of images related to recording (i.e., recording data), performs processing, and the like, or may be a reader unit for image reading. Details of recording data are described later. The recording data, other commands, status signals, and the like are transmitted to and received from the controller 100 of the inkjet recording apparatus 210 via an interface (I/F) 112. An image processing flow in the inkjet recording apparatus is described later.
Next, an exemplary glossiness adjusting liquid used in the present embodiment is described.
A difference in the polymer amount may cause a difference in the recorded liquids on a recording medium. As an effect thereof, the glossiness adjusting liquid containing a greater polymer amount recorded in advance (i.e., as in the present disclosure) prevents subsequently applied color ink from being permeated in, absorbed into, and fixed to the recording medium. Therefore, if the glossiness adjusting liquid is recorded earlier than the color ink, the surface of the subsequently applied color ink becomes roughened, which provides the surface with a matt texture.
The present embodiment employs a typical glossiness adjusting liquid that has a composition excluding a coloring material. Such a glossiness adjusting liquid is transparent. Thus, an influence on the image color is minimized. If the glossiness adjusting liquid contains a coloring material, the color must be adjusted between the portion to which the glossiness adjusting liquid is applied and the portion to which the glossiness adjusting liquid is not applied. The above glossiness adjusting liquid is illustrative only and it is not a purpose to exclude the case in which the coloring material is contained. If the glossiness adjusting liquid contains a coloring material, but the coloring material is substantially transparent to the subsequently applied color ink, such as colorless, or very light color such as yellow, that glossiness adjusting liquid has the same function as that of the glossiness adjusting liquid containing no coloring material of this example. That is, ink containing a proper polymer amount and having the same function with respect to the recording medium can be used. Therefore, ink containing a coloring material and having the same function can be used. The glossiness adjusting liquid does not substantially react with color ink.
In the present embodiment, a formed image is provided with a matt texture by application of a glossiness adjusting liquid to a recording medium prior to formation of an image with normal ink. First, the phenomenon is described with reference to
The glossiness adjusting liquid applied to the recording medium prior to the ink tends to prevent permeation and fixation of the ink into the recording medium due to the function of the polymer contained in the glossiness adjusting liquid. When the color ink for image formation is recorded subsequently, the surface shape is changed since the process described above is different from that of the case where the glossiness adjusting liquid is not recorded. This roughens the surface, and loses glossiness of the surface in both appearance and in measurement value.
A method for implementing such a physical phenomenon by a recording method is described.
First, a process flow for generating recording data for the color ink and the glossiness adjusting liquid is described.
The reference numeral 901 denotes an application on a personal computer (PC). A total of 24 bits of image data (each 8 bits to red, green, blue (RGB)) is input from the application 901 to a color process unit 902. The color process unit 902 converts the RGB image data into signals of color ink to be used in the inkjet recording apparatus. In the present embodiment, five colors of ink are used in the inkjet recording apparatus, but the disclosure is not limited to the same. The signal of the color ink output from the color process unit 902 becomes a total of 84 bits (12 bits for each color) to achieve gradation.
The reference numeral 903 denotes a halftoning process unit. The halftoning process unit 903 performs a pseudo halftone process (i.e., a halftoning process), such as error diffusion, to the 12-bit (=4096 value) multivalued signal of each input color, and converts the signal into data of an N-value lower than that of 4096 value. Specifically, the N-value is, for example, about 3 to 16. Multi-value halftoning of 2 to 4 bits of each color is performed. Although multi-valued halftoning is described in the present embodiment, this is not restrictive and binary halftoning may also be used.
The reference numeral 905 denotes a first print buffer. The processes until the halftoning process are performed by the host apparatus or personal computer (PC) 110, and the subsequent processes are performed by inkjet recording apparatus main body. Therefore, the N-value data that has halftoned by the halftoning process unit 903 is temporality stored in the first print buffer 905 from the PC 110.
The reference numeral 907 denotes a dot pattern development unit. The dot pattern development unit 907 develops the data to N types of gradation dot patterns corresponding to the N-value data input from the first print buffer 905. This example is described with reference to
The reference numeral 909 denotes a masking process unit. Record-scanning in which the recording head is made to scan a plurality of times with respect to the same recording area to record an image is referred to as a multipath recording process. In the multipath recording process, the masking process unit 909 performs a mask process in accordance with the developed dot patterns using a thinning pattern (hereafter, referred to as a mask pattern) to thin out the recording data for each of the scanning events.
Returning to
Next, with reference to
In S302, the recording data is generated by the processes in color process unit 902, the halftoning process unit 903, the first print buffer 905, the dot pattern development unit 907, and the masking process unit 909. The recording data is related to the glossiness adjusting liquid, and is multi-valued data generated separated from ordinary recording data about the color ink using the function of the application 901. In the present embodiment, the multi-valued data corresponds to the shape of the image of the color ink that forms an image reproducing a matt texture. The first recording data about the color ink output from the color process unit 902 was 12 bits in consideration of gradation. Second recording data of the glossiness adjusting liquid, on the contrary, is output as 8-bit data, i.e., 256 tones because fewer steps of gradation are used. The halftoning process unit 904 performs a halftoning process to the multi-value recording data for the input glossiness adjusting liquid and converts the data into an M-value smaller than 256 value. The reference numeral 906 denotes a second print buffer and 908 denotes a dot pattern development unit. Since the function of the second print buffer 906 is the same as that of the first print buffer 905 and the function of the dot pattern development unit 908 is the same as the dot pattern development unit 907 in the flowchart for processing the data of color ink, description thereof is omitted. The reference numeral 910 denotes a masking process unit. Since the function of the masking process unit 910 is the same as that in the flowchart for processing the data of color ink, description thereof is omitted. The recording data for each data scanning processed by the masking process unit 910 is sent to the glossiness adjusting liquid ejecting portion 911 of the recording head 5, and the glossiness adjusting liquid ejecting portion 911 is driven. The print buffers, the dot pattern development units, and the masking process units for both the color ink and the glossiness adjusting liquid are provided as parts of the controller 100 of
Based on the thus generated recording data for each scanning event, recording of the glossiness adjusting liquid is performed by at least one scanning event (S303), and then recording of the color ink is performed by the recording head 5 (S304). With reference to
The reference numerals 2101 to 2104 in
With reference to
The recording head 5 has nozzle arrays constituted by nozzles for the color ink (C (cyan), M (magenta), Y (yellow), K (black), Gy (gray)) arranged in the sub-scanning direction and nozzle arrays constituted by nozzles for the glossiness adjusting liquid arranged in the sub-scanning direction. These nozzle arrays are arranged side-by-side in the main scanning direction in which the recording head 5 moves as illustrated in
In this case, a mask pattern in which the ON pixels are provided over the entire sub-scanning direction of the nozzle array may be used for the recording with the glossiness adjusting liquid. In this case, when the ink is applied to the recording medium, the glossiness adjusting liquid is also applied.
If the user does not set to be the matt texture in S301, the application 901 sets to perform ordinary printing (S305). In this case, the inkjet recording apparatus 210 forms an image with the color ink (S306), and then applies the glossiness adjusting liquid to the recording medium on which the color ink image has been formed to adjust the glossiness (S307). In this case, in contrast to the form illustrated, for example, in
Usually, as the degree of matt texture increases, haze is decreased and transparency is lost, whereby a color gamut is reduced. The method of this specification, however, is effective also in reducing the color gamut.
In the present embodiment, dot arrangements of the glossiness adjusting liquid in a case in which the matt texture is provided are described.
To obtain a matt texture, it is effective to record a glossiness adjusting liquid first and then form an image with color ink. A further matt texture can be expressed with an improved dot pattern of the glossiness adjusting liquid.
To achieve a matt texture, no dot-on-dot arrangement per unit lattice regarding a dot on which the glossiness adjusting liquid is recorded (
A specific method for implementing a no dot-on-dot dot formation is described. Recording may be performed using the same apparatus as that of the first embodiment. In the present embodiment, a process flow of recording data is described in detail. A method may use a process in the dot pattern development unit 907. For example, when 2 dots of the glossiness adjusting liquid are recorded in 600 dpi unit lattice, if recording data is generated at 600 dpi, the dot target position during recording becomes the same (
However, if, for example, the unit lattice of the halftoning process unit 903 is set to 600 dpi and the process is performed such that the resolution becomes 1200 dpi after the process of the dot pattern development unit 908, dot targets are distributed and the dot-on-dot arrangement cannot be obtained (
In the present embodiment, quantization for data generating to record dots of the glossiness adjusting liquid in the case of providing a matt texture is described.
The quantization process for generating recording data to record the glossiness adjusting liquid is performed by the halftoning process unit 904. The effect of providing a matt texture becomes higher as the resolution of quantization becomes higher. This is due to the effect of the recorded dots in a distributed manner as in the second embodiment.
Each embodiment of the present disclosure is to reproduce a texture by recording a glossiness adjusting liquid previously. The glossiness adjusting liquid is recorded previously to inhibit permeation, absorption, and fixing of color ink by the polymer included in the glossiness adjusting liquid, and changes surface roughness compared with a case where the glossiness adjusting liquid is not recorded previously. A higher effect can be obtained by recording the glossiness adjusting liquid by 9.5 pl or more at 600 dpi.
Glossiness adjustment for providing matt texture can be achieved also by the dot arrangement described in the second embodiment, quantization described in the third embodiment, and the amount of the glossiness adjusting liquid described in the present embodiment. Here, the no dot-on-dot recording method illustrated in
That is, although the gloss value can be adjusted both by dot distribution and by an increase in the usage amount of the glossiness adjusting liquid, if the effect of reducing the usage amount of the glossiness adjusting liquid is also significant, it is desirable to adjust the usage amount of the glossiness adjusting liquid after optimizing the dot arrangement as in the second and the third embodiments. Therefore, it is possible to adjust the gloss value while reducing the usage amount of the glossiness adjusting liquid.
It is desirable to reflect the user's intention on the adjustment of the gloss value. On the application 901, the gloss value can be adjusted on an adjustment screen as illustrated in
That is, the degree of mattness can be increased or decreased.
In the present embodiment, a recording method in a case where an object to be matt and an object to be kept glossy exist at the same time on the same surface of a recording medium is described.
In the present embodiment, the glossiness adjusting liquid is applied only to the specific object part prior to the color ink and, the glossiness adjusting liquid is applied after the color ink in the portion to be glossy. The previous/subsequent application of the glossiness adjusting liquid and the color ink can be performed by the methods described in the first embodiment.
With reference to
In this case, a matt part can be provided on a glossy medium with glossy surface, such as glossy paper and, on the contrary, a highly glossy part can be provided amongst other matt parts. A glossy part and a matt part can be realized on a single recording medium.
In this case, recording can be performed along the flowchart of
As illustrated in
S803 to S808 of
First, in S803, if the region where the recording head 5 performs recording is a region to be matt, a pattern for matt is recorded on a portion where matt is to be reproduced in the usage region 91 of the nozzle array for the glossiness adjusting liquid (S804). Next, an image is recorded with color ink of a plurality of colors in the usage region 93 of the nozzle arrays of the color ink located downstream in the sub-scanning direction of the usage region 91 (S805). Depending on the color to be formed, a single color may be used. If, in S806, the region where the recording is performed is a region to be glossy, an image is recorded with color ink of a plurality of colors in the usage region 93 of the nozzle arrays of color ink (S807). Next, the glossiness adjusting liquid is applied on the image of color ink in the usage region 92 (S808). If the region to be recorded with the recording head in S806 is neither matt nor glossy, an image is recorded with color ink in an amount determined depending on the data of the corresponding image.
Here, a cross-sectional view of a state of the recording medium after recording by applying the color ink and the glossiness adjusting liquid in this order to achieve highly glossy by S807 and S808 is illustrated in
Alternatively, the matt part and the highly glossy part may coexist on the same recording medium by the following method. For example, the recording medium may be discharged after the glossiness adjusting liquid for matt is recorded, and then the recording medium may be placed again for the recording of the color ink to the matt part and the color ink to the highly glossy part, and recording of the glossiness adjusting liquid. However, the above-described method in which the nozzle arrays are grouped into the usage regions to record the color ink and the glossiness adjusting liquid uses smaller amount of operations to feed and convey the recording medium and, therefore, misalignment between the matt part and other part and between the glossy part and other part can be reduced.
Even if the matt part and the other part coexist on the same recording medium, when no highly glossy part needs to be formed in the medium, it is not necessary to use the nozzle in a manner such that only the glossiness adjusting liquid is recorded after the application of the color ink is completed. In that case, the throughput becomes higher by using the nozzle in a manner illustrated in
The present embodiment is an application of a method for changing a glossy texture into a matt texture by using a glossiness adjusting liquid. In the present embodiment, an improved pattern of the glossiness adjusting liquid is used to enhance a user's expressive possibility. Specifically, patterns that reproduce textures of various media are recorded as recording patterns of the glossiness adjusting liquid. Therefore, a pattern appears on the recording medium to reproduce a texture as if it is recorded on another medium. Specifically, textures of various media, such as canvas, random embossed paper, drawing paper, and Japanese paper, are reproducible.
The examples are illustrated in
The pattern corresponding to the surface roughness information on the specific medium for reproducing the texture of the specific medium can be stored in the application 901 previously, and may be selected by the user. The roughness information may be acquired from the recorded image, stored in a storage unit of the host apparatus, and may be used.
The roughness information may be acquired by, for example, the following method. First, projecting portions on a white recording medium are lightly colored with, for example, a pencil and white and black information is read with an optical apparatus to acquire information easily. In this case, the portions colored in black with a pencil are the projecting portions, which are to be portions where the glossiness adjusting liquid is to be applied. The white and black information acquired and stored in the storage unit can be used as pattern information by the application 901.
This is described in detail with reference to
These are described with reference to
This process is performed simultaneously with the driver process S102.
Then, recording with the glossiness adjusting liquid is performed based on the data after composition in the region to be matt in S1203 (S1204), and then recording with the color ink is performed (S1205). In the region to be matt, recording with the color ink is performed (S1205), and then recording with the glossiness adjusting liquid is performed (S1207). The flow of this recording can be executed in the same manner as described in the fourth embodiment. Alternatively, a texture of a medium surface to be reproduced may be selected for each region (e.g., a part is canvas tone and a part is drawing paper tone), and the degree of each texture may be set on such a UI as illustrated in
As the methods for applying the glossiness adjusting liquid and the ink in this order to the recording medium as described in the embodiments above, roller coating may also be used in addition to the nozzle division printing or double-passage of the recording medium through the apparatus.
These methods can change glossiness without changing the recording medium and can enhance user's expressive possibility.
According to the present disclosure, compared with the related art methods, the glossiness control range can be increased, and can form an image with a more matt texture on a recording medium.
While the present disclosure has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the disclosure is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments. The scope of the following claims is to be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent structures and functions.
This application claims the benefit of priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2014-238251, filed Nov. 25, 2014 which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-238251 | Nov 2014 | JP | national |
