PRINTING APPARATUS AND PRINTING METHOD

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To inexpensively obtain high image quality by eliminating a banding with a simple apparatus configuration without positioning an outgoing beam in CTP (Computer-To-Plate) printing or the like. SOLUTION: The printing apparatus is provided with: a printing plate material 1 wound around and fixed on the surface of a cylindrical drum 2; a drawing optical system 8 drawing a plurality of pixels 14 in a main scanning direction around the axial line of the drum 2 and then drawing in a sub-scanning direction along the axial line of the drum 2; and a control means to shift a drawing initial position of the drawing optical system 8 for every color in printing by use of the printing plate material 1 so as to align positions of images drawn on the printing plate material 1. The apparatus may be controlled in such a manner that a predetermined margin is added and stored in the image data to be drawn on the printing plate material 1 and drawing is started at a position apart from the edge of the printing plate material by the margin. It is preferable that the shift in the drawing initial positions of two colors, whose drawing initial positions are adjacent to each other, is a quarter of the band width of the plurality of pixels 14. COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT