JPH07258981A - Method for print-dyeing cloth through ink-jetting and apparatus therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a process for print-dyeing cloth using an ink jet printer and the apparatus therefor, by which pale color tones can be realized with reduced number of ink nozzles without marked coarseness of dots. CONSTITUTION:In addition to inks of the primary colors of yellow, magenta, cyan and black, a colorless ink of only solvent is used. The number of ink nozzles for the ink jet printer is made five and the 5 nozzles are allocated to the respective color inks. The dotted points of the ink containing only the solvent is those of yellow, magenta or cyan color and the points adjacent in the pale color are. When pale gray points are formed with black points reduced in density, the colorless ink is dotted to the black points and/or the points adjacent.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for printing cloth using an ink jet printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A method and an apparatus for printing a cloth by causing ink droplets ejected from an ink nozzle of an ink jet printer to collide with the surface of the cloth to form a large number of ink dots have been widely tried. When printing a multicolored pattern on a cloth, four colors of dyes, which are the three primary colors of the paint, yellow Y, magenta M, cyan C, and black K, are used. In this case, the density of the color is represented by reducing the dot density.
Further, for the colors other than the above three primary colors and black, a desired hue is obtained by dyeing (dotting) two or more colors with a dot density according to the mixing ratio of each color.

Intermediate colors (including light colors) depending on dot density
The method for obtaining a high-saturation intermediate color is widely used in the field of printing as well, but in the printing of fabrics using inkjet nozzles, there is a problem that the dot spacing becomes too large in the light color region. . In a printing unit that forms dots by halftone dots, since shading is expressed not by the difference in the number of dots but by the difference in the area of dots, the roughness of dots is not a concern even in light-colored areas, but with inkjet printers The area of dots does not change between the dark color area and the light color area, and the number of dots is different, so that the dot interval becomes large in the light color area and it becomes unsightly.

As a means for solving this problem, it is conceivable to make the ink droplets of the ink jet small so as to increase the number of dots of the ink droplets per unit area, but it is technically constant to make the ink droplets small. There is a limit and the number of dots to be printed is very large, which causes a problem that the printing speed becomes slow.

Therefore, another means that has been tried in the past is to add some kinds of light color inks in addition to the above three primary color inks and black inks, and print the light color area with the light color ink. For example, by using an ink having the original density for magenta and cyan and an ink that is diluted to be a light color, and using a light color ink for a low density area of each color, it is possible to prevent the dot density from becoming rough. Of. This method is effective in its own way, but the number of dots to be printed must be changed depending on the problem that the number of nozzles of the inkjet printer must be increased and whether to use dark ink or light ink. There is a control problem.

[0006]

The above-mentioned means for reducing the size of the ink droplet is difficult to put into practical use technically and economically. In the above-mentioned means using the dark color ink and the light color ink, the number of ink nozzles of the printer is 6 to 8, and the feature that the intermediate color can be expressed by only the three primary colors is lost. That is, the number of colors is rarely more than 10 in textile printing, and if 8 ink nozzles are required, 10 ink nozzles are used and the pre-toned ink is supplied to each ink nozzle. It means that a higher quality product can be obtained by supplying it and printing it by solid printing.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to obtain an ink jet printing method and apparatus capable of printing a light color with a smaller number of ink nozzles without conspicuous dot roughness.

[0008]

In the printing of the present invention, in addition to the usual colored ink containing a dye component,
An ink containing only a solvent containing no dye component (which is naturally colorless) is used. In general, four color inks of yellow Y, magenta M, cyan C, and black K, which are the three primary colors of paint, are used as the colored ink. Inkjet printer has 5 ink nozzles, yellow, magenta,
One ink nozzle is assigned to each of cyan, black, and solvent only inks. A structure in which the nozzle diameter of the ink nozzle to which the ink containing only the solvent is assigned is made larger than the nozzle diameter of the other ink nozzles is also a preferable structure. The dot dot positions of yellow, magenta, and cyan for the shades of the three primary colors and the desired intermediate color are determined in the same manner as in the past. Therefore, the dot size itself does not change due to the change in shade of the color and the hue, but only the dot spacing between dots changes.

The dot position of the ink containing only the solvent is the dot position of yellow, magenta or cyan in the light-colored portion and / or the position adjacent thereto. That is, the ink containing only the solvent is previously struck at the position where dots of yellow, magenta, or cyan are adjoined and / or the position adjacent thereto, or after the dots for each color are applied, the positions of the dots and / or the positions adjacent thereto. Dot ink with solvent only. If necessary, the dots of the ink containing only the solvent may be applied before and after the dots of the respective colors are applied. If you want to create a light gray area in black with a low dot density,
The ink of the solvent only is struck at the black spot and / or the position adjacent thereto.

It is sufficient that the dot of the ink containing only the solvent is applied to the light colored region of each color in the printed pattern. Even if the area is apparently a dark color area, if yellow or cyan is doted at a coarse interval in a high density magenta dot with a dark color of an intermediate color, the area for that yellow or cyan is the area. Is a light-colored area, so ink dots of only the solvent are dot-applied to the dot-position positions of yellow and cyan and / or the position adjacent thereto.

[0012] Dotting the ink of only the solvent at the dot-applying position of a dark color, that is, the dot where the dot is applied with a high dot density or a position adjacent to the dot-applying position does not cause any adverse effect, but is not so effective. A method in which the dot of the ink containing only the solvent is applied to all of the dot positions of yellow, magenta, and cyan and / or the positions adjacent thereto is also included in the method of the present invention. In the case of a pattern having a dark color area, the dot position of the ink containing only the solvent may be set to be the same as the dot positions of the other colors, which simplifies the control. On the other hand, in the case of a pattern having a lot of dark color areas, it is uneconomical to waste the solvent because it is wasteful of the solvent to apply the ink only to the dot positions of all the colors and / or the positions adjacent thereto.

Whether or not the dot of the ink containing only the solvent is applied to the dot position of the black ink and / or the position adjacent thereto is determined by what kind of pattern is desired. In the case where the black ink represents the edging of the pattern, the dot of the ink containing only the solvent should not be applied to the dot position of the black ink or a position adjacent to the dot position. It is best to draw the area where the dot of solvent only ink is prohibited according to each pattern to be printed, and suppress the dot of ink only of solvent in that area, but the dot area of black ink is the solvent. It is also effective to set it as the hitting point suppression area of only ink.

[0013]

According to the present invention, the dark color ink spotted in the light color area is diluted with the solvent-only ink spotted in advance at the spotting position and / or the position adjacent to the spotting position and / or at the position adjacent thereto, so that the ink density is reduced. As the dot size decreases, the dot area increases. In addition, since the surroundings of the dots also become blurred, the dots become less noticeable and the color uniformity increases, making it possible to perform more natural and beautiful light-color printing. In this case, the method of dot-forming the ink of only the solvent at the dot position of the dark-colored ink and the position adjacent thereto and the structure of making the nozzle diameter of the solvent-only ink larger than the nozzle diameter of the other ink have the above-mentioned effects. It is possible to print more evenly and lightly and with high uniformity.

Further, even in a region in which the intermediate color is expressed by mixing the dots of the three primary colors, the dots of the respective primary colors are blurred by the dots of the ink of only the solvent, so that a more natural and soft intermediate color can be expressed.

As described above, according to the technique of the present invention, since the outline of the dot is blurred to give a soft color tone, the outline portion of the pattern tends to be unsatisfactory, but this problem is caused by the black ink dots arranged in the outline portion. This can be avoided by not forming the dot of the ink containing only the solvent in the area. In other words, the pattern to be printed can be sharpened by appropriately setting the area where the dot of the ink containing only the solvent is not applied according to the form of the pattern to be printed and the required sharpness.

In general, by not performing the dot formation of the ink containing only the solvent at the dot formation position of the black ink in the contour portion of the pattern and the position adjacent thereto, it has a soft and uniform color surface and the contour is clearly defined. A patterned pattern can be formed.

Further, in the present invention, the number of ink nozzles that must be added to obtain a uniform light color region is only one, and the ink of only the solvent is struck by this one nozzle to make yellow, Since it is possible to form dots with reduced density for all colors of magenta, cyan, and black, a high-quality light-colored area can be obtained that is similar to the case where four nozzles for each light-colored color are added, and the cost can be reduced. The effect ratio can be increased.

Further, in the apparatus of the present invention, the dot pattern given to the ink nozzle of the added solvent only ink is the same as the dot pattern given to the nozzles of other colors, or the dot pattern shifted vertically and horizontally. The feature is that the additional production of dot pattern information and the generation of control information due to the addition of nozzles can be minimized, and a large effect can be obtained with a small economic burden.

[0019]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention. The dot information Py, Pm, and Pc for each of the above three primary colors are generated from the read patterns of the three primary colors yellow Y, magenta M, and cyan C of the original 2 read through the spectroscope 1. The dot information of each color is given to the ink nozzles Ny, Nm, Nc of each color through the driver D to form the dot of each color on the cloth to be dyed. On the other hand, the image information of the read original is displayed on the display 3, and the contour of the image is traced by the mouse 4, thereby forming a printing pattern of black K, generating dot information Pk of black dots, and passing through the driver D to black. For controlling the ink nozzle Nk. The above-described structure and operation are the same as those of the conventional inkjet printing apparatus provided with four ink nozzles of yellow, magenta, cyan and black. In the figure, 10 is a computer.

In the present invention, in addition to the above-mentioned four ink nozzles, a nozzle Nn is provided for an ink containing only a solvent obtained by removing a dye from the ink (hereinafter referred to as a colorless ink). To the nozzle Nn for colorless ink, OR information of the dot information Pm of magenta and the dot information Pc of cyan is given as dot dot information. That is, colorless ink is struck from the ink nozzles Nn at the positions where the magenta dots and the cyan dots are struck. The spots of the colorless ink may be before or after the spots of the magenta and cyan inks, or both before and after the spots in some cases.

In the first embodiment, the dot of the colorless ink is not formed at the dot forming position of yellow because yellow has a low color density of its own, and the dot is formed in a light color area as compared with magenta and cyan. Since the roughness is not so noticeable, the dots of colorless ink were omitted. In addition, the colorless ink is not applied to the black dot position because the black dot information is set to make the outline of the pattern clear, so the colorless ink is applied to that part and the sharpness of the pattern is impaired. This is to avoid being lost.

As the colorless ink, those known as a solvent for the dye liquid can be used, and generally, a water-soluble organic solvent containing water as a main component and various additives as necessary are added. Examples of the water-soluble organic solvent include ketones or ketone alcohols such as acetone and diacetone alcohol, ethers such as tetrahydrofuran and dioxane, diethylene glycol, triethyllen glycol, tetraethylene glycol, dipropylene glycol, tripropylene glycol, polyethylene glycol and polypropylene. Oxyethylene or oxypropylene addition polymers such as glycol, ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, trimethylene glycol, butylene glycol, hexylene glycol, and other alkylene glycols having 2 to 6 carbon atoms, 1, 2, Triols such as 6-hexanetriol, glycerin, ethylene glycol monomethyl (or ethyl) ether, Lower alkyl ethers of polyhydric alcohols such as ethylene glycol monomethyl (or ethyl) ether, triethylene glycol monomethyl (or ethyl) ether, triethylene glycol dimethyl (or ethyl) ether, tetraethylene glycol dimethyl (or ethyl) ether, etc. Lower dialkyl ethers of polyhydric alcohols,
Sulfolane, N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, 1-3-dimethyl-2-imidazolidinone and the like can be mentioned.

Other additives include surfactants, viscosity modifiers, surface tension modifiers, resistivity modifiers and PH.
Examples include regulators (lithium hydroxide, sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, etc.), antifungal agents, penetrants (methanol, ethanol, propanol, etc.), chelating agents and the like.

FIG. 2 shows a second embodiment of the present invention. In the second embodiment, the colorless ink is also struck at the yellow dot position, and even if the yellow, magenta and / or cyan dot positions are set,
The dot information of the high dot density portion is cut by the filter F so that the dot of the colorless ink is not applied to the high dot density portion, and the dot information Pk of the black ink is inverted by the knot circuit NOT. By controlling the dot position of the colorless ink, the dot dot of the colorless ink to the black dot position is positively suppressed.

That is, the dot information Py, Pm, and Pc for yellow, magenta, and cyan are respectively applied to the OR circuit OR via the filter F to generate dot information for colorless ink. On the other hand, the black dot information Pk is inverted by the knot circuit NOT to be ANDed with the OR circuit, and the portion overlapping with the black dot information Pk is removed from the dot information output from the OR circuit OR. Dot information is given to the colorless ink nozzles Nn.

In the second embodiment, the colorless ink is not applied to the high density portion of the printed pattern to avoid unnecessary consumption of the colorless ink. Further, by positively avoiding the colorless ink being struck at the black dot position, it is possible to avoid the colorless ink being struck at the dot position when, for example, the black and cyan dot positions overlap. , The sharpness of the contour portion can be guaranteed more reliably.

FIGS. 3 to 5 are enlarged views of a pattern printed by the conventional method and a pattern printed by the method of the present invention. Originally, three primary colors and black dots are used. Is represented in black and white. FIG. 3 shows a pattern printed by the conventional method, which is considerably unsightly when the dot density is coarse and enlarged. In FIG. 4, colorless ink composed of only a solvent is applied to all of the dot positions in FIG. 3, and each color surface is a uniform color surface as a whole, but the outline of the pattern is also blurred. From this, it is understood that when it is desired to make the pattern soft, the dots of the colorless ink are applied to the entire dot positions. In FIG. 5, the dot of colorless ink is suppressed at the dot position of black, which is the contour pattern of the pattern,
Colored ink is applied to the other color pattern surface,
The color surface of each color is more uniform without losing the sharpness of the pattern.

In the above embodiment, the colorless ink is spotted at the same spot as the spots of magenta and cyan, but the spot adjacent to the spots of magenta and cyan or the spots of magenta and cyan and this spot It is also possible to perform the spotting of the colorless ink at both of the positions adjacent to.

To perform a dot at a position adjacent to the dot position of magenta or cyan, for example, when (A) of FIG. 6 is dot information indicating the dot position of magenta or cyan, the dot is shifted left by 1 bit. The dot information shown in FIG. 7B and the dot information shown in FIG. 7C, which is shifted to the right by one bit, are created, and the OR information (D) of the dot information shown in FIGS. If the dot information is used, colorless ink can be applied at positions adjacent to both sides of the dot positions of magenta and cyan.

If the dot information of (A) and the dot information of (D) of FIG. 6 are used as the dot information of the colorless ink, the dot of the colorless ink is applied to the dot position of magenta or cyan and the position adjacent thereto. be able to. If the number of dots of the colorless ink is increased, the density of the ink can be made thinner and the dot size can be made larger, so that the color of the light color region can be made softer and uniform.

Further, in the above-mentioned first and second embodiments,
By making the nozzle diameter of the colorless ink nozzle Nn larger than the nozzle diameters of the other nozzles, the ink droplet of the colorless ink is enlarged, and the density of the ink at the dot position of the colorless ink is further reduced to make the light color area uniform. It can also enhance sex. Furthermore, two nozzles for colorless ink are provided,
By increasing the diameter of one nozzle, the same dot information is given to the first colorless nozzle, to the second colorless nozzle, and to both when the same dot information is given to both, A configuration is possible in which the amount of colorless ink is changed in three stages according to the density.

[0032]

According to the present invention described above, in the case of printing a fabric by ink jet using the three primary color ink nozzles and the black ink nozzles, the quality of the pattern printed by adding one nozzle In particular, the uniformity of the color surface of the light-colored area of the pattern can be significantly improved, and the quality of ink-jet printing can be significantly improved without significantly increasing the economic burden, and the cost performance is very high. There is an effect that excellent printing can be performed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a second embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged explanatory view of a printing pattern by conventional means.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged explanatory view of a first example of a printed pattern according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an enlarged explanatory view of a second example of a printed pattern according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing a means for generating dot information for adjacent positions of colorless ink.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Py, Pm, Pc, Pk Dot information Ny, Nm, Nc, Nk Ink nozzle Nn Solvent-only ink nozzle

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A colored ink containing a dye component and a colorless ink containing only a solvent containing no dye component are used.
A method for printing a cloth by an ink jet method, comprising: spotting an ink containing only the solvent in a light-color printing area. 2. In addition to a dye liquid of four colors of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black which are the three primary colors of paint, an ink containing only a solvent containing no dye component is used, and at least each of magenta and cyan colors is used. The ink-jet printing method for fabrics is characterized in that the ink of only the above solvent is applied to the light-colored printing area. 3. In addition to a dye liquid of four colors of yellow, magenta, cyan and black, which are the three primary colors of paint, an ink containing only a solvent containing no dye component is used, and at least each of magenta and cyan colors is used. The method for printing a cloth by ink jet, wherein the ink is dot-printed with only the solvent in the light-colored printing area except for the black printing area. 4. The ink-jet textile printing method according to claim 1, wherein the dot position of the ink containing only the solvent is the same as the dot position of the colored ink to be light-colored. 5. The ink-jet textile printing method according to claim 1, wherein the dot position of the ink containing only the solvent is a position adjacent to the dot position of the colored ink to be light-colored. 6. In addition to a plurality of ink nozzles to which colored ink is assigned, an ink nozzle to which colorless ink containing only a solvent is assigned is provided.
Inkjet textile printing device. 7. An ink, which is provided with five ink nozzles to which inks of yellow, magenta, cyan, black, and solvent only are respectively allocated, and ink to which the ink of solvent only is allocated is assigned to black. 7. The ink-jet textile printing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the printing is controlled by an inversion signal of a nozzle dot signal. 8. The ink jet textile printing according to claim 6 or 7, wherein the ink nozzles to which the colorless ink containing only the solvent is assigned have a larger nozzle diameter than the ink nozzles to which the colored ink is assigned. apparatus.