| 摘要 |
<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image forming apparatus capable of allowing even a third party who is not a producer of print data to readily confirm a cause of degraded image quality of a printed material by judging whether the degraded image quality is caused by the apparatus or the print data to inform the third party of the result, and the control method therefor. <P>SOLUTION: This image forming apparatus comprises a gradation pattern data holding means for holding gradation pattern data for confirming printed quality, a printing control means for outputting to a printer the print data to be printed and the gradation pattern data held by the gradation pattern data holding means, a reading means for optically reading the image on the printed material printed by the printer according to the print data to be printed and the gradation pattern data outputted from the printing control means, an extracting means for extracting the image of the gradation pattern data from the image on the printed material read by the reading means, and a judging means for judging whether the good or bad of the printed result by the printer is caused by the print data or the printer based on the image of the gradation pattern data extracted by the extracting means. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI |
