A printing apparatus that includes nozzle arrays, formed of nozzles for ejecting ink of the first to fourth ink color groups, and that scans a print medium while moving the nozzle arrays to perform printing. For printing a unit area of a print medium, where printing is to be completed by performing a plurality of scans, the printing apparatus performs a plurality of scans, and conveys, between movements, a print medium a predetermined amount, which is equivalent to the width of the unit area. Then, to perform a plurality of scans using the nozzle arrays for the first to fourth ink color groups, print data are generated, so that for the nozzle arrays that belong to two ink color groups, the nozzle array for the first ink color group is employed to eject ink into the unit area prior to the nozzle array for the second ink color group.