image forming apparatus using heating sublimation technique

摘要

An image forming apparatus includes a print head (2) controllably driven according to print data; a heater device (HU) for applying thermal energy to a recording medium (1) in order to fix ink applied on its surface layer by the print head onto its fixing layer (11); and a controller (7) for producing the print data from image data. The controller (7) includes a deformation compensating section (9) for compensating for displacement between a target image and a fixed image due to size change in the vertical and/or lateral direction of the recording medium occurring in association with application of the thermal energy thereto. The controller (7) includes also a fixing color development characteristics compensating section (92) for effecting fixing color development characteristics compensation during the production of the print data from the image data, based on fixing color development characteristics of the ink to the fixing layer dependent on the thermal energy and a heat absorption rate compensating section (96) for compensating for a difference in a color-dependent heat absorption rate for a radiant heat beam during the production of the print data from the image data. <IMAGE>