RECORDING APPARATUS AND RECORDING METHOD

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a recording apparatus capable of making inconspicuous a wide-ranging image quality failure represented by color banding.SOLUTION: A color swath plotted by one scan is divided in a sub-scanning direction by a positive integer of 3 or more so that respective regions are in a complementary relationship, and an uneven print mask function is applied to carry out a plotting operation so that the width of each region of the divided color swath substantially coincides with the width of positive integer times of a conveyance pitch when conveying a recording medium. The apparatus can thereby suppress printing failures such as boundary banding, beading and a solid blur in addition to bidirectional banding due to a difference in color overlapping order between a forward path and a return path. Consequently, stable achievement of high printing image quality can be expected.