US Patent 7533961 Imaging method and image forming apparatus

An imaging method is disclosed that is implemented in an image forming apparatus for forming a tone pattern on a recording medium by forming an arrangement of dots on the recording medium. The arrangement of dots is formed on the recording medium by jetting a recording liquid from a recording head while moving the recording head in a main scanning direction a plurality of times and intermittently conveying the recording medium in a sub-scanning direction that perpendicularly intersects the main scanning direction. The imaging method involves forming the arrangement of dots such that dots belonging to a first group that are consecutively aligned in a base tone direction and dots belonging to a second group that are consecutively aligned in the sub scanning direction are respectively formed in non-consecutive order on the recording medium.