NAIL PRINTER AND PRINTING CONTROL METHOD

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a nail printer and a printing control method by which a nail region can be detected accurately, stably and in addition simply, and by which printing on the entire nail region can be surely and easily performed.SOLUTION: The nail printer performs printing of a design on a nail region N by detecting the nail region N from a finger nail image obtained by an imaging means 40. In the printing device, an illumination means 30 for illuminating the finger tip of a printed finber F from the bulb of the finger is disposed, and the nail tip free edge region N2 of a nail portion T of the printed finber F is detected from the changes of pieces of color information obtained from a nail image (a first nail finger image I) before illumination of the finger tip by the illumination means 30 and from a nail image (a second nail finger image II) after the illumination, respectively. Consequently, the printing on the entire nail region N including the nail tip free edge region N2 and the detected nail bed region N1 can be surely and easily performed.