Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes an electrophotographic photoconductive body for forming an electrostatic latent image thereon; an exposure device for exposing the electrophotographic photoconductive body to form an electrostatic latent image; a storage device for storing information related to potential characteristics at a plurality of areas divided on a surface of the electrophotographic photoconductive body in advance; an information obtaining device for obtaining the information related to potential characteristics, wherein light quantities exposed by the exposure device are determined according to the information related to potential characteristics stored by the storage device and the information related to potential characteristics obtained by the information obtaining device.

Abstract: An image heating apparatus for allowing a surface of a heated toner image borne on a recording material to be glossed without generating a batter in the heated toner image is provided. In an image heating apparatus (9) including heating means (11 and 12) for heating an unfixed toner image (ta) borne on a recording material (P) and pressure means (21 and 22) for pressurizing an unfixed toner image (tb) heated by the heating means to gloss a surface of the unfixed toner image, the pressure means includes: pressure force changing means (54L and 54R) for changing a pressure force when the pressure means pressurizes the unfixed toner image; temperature detecting means (51 and 52) for detecting a temperature of the pressure means; and pressurization control means (53).

Abstract: An image forming apparatus is provided in which on-surface potential unevenness of an image carrier can be suppressed, and with which an output image having excellent on-surface uniformity of color or the like can be obtained. The image forming apparatus includes: a photoconductive image carrier; charger which charges the image carrier; image exposing unit which exposes an image on a surface of the image carrier after the charging to form a latent electrostatic image; developing unit which develops the latent electrostatic image by adhering toner to the latent electrostatic image to form a toner image; and transfer charger which transfers the obtained toner image to a final supporting member such as plain paper.

Abstract: The present invention further improves gradation characteristics from a highlight region to a high-density region. First, the correction processing receives image data, and an image attribute discrimination discriminates whether the data are related to a character/thin line or others on the basis of attribute information on a pixel of interest. If it is discriminated that the data are related to a character/thin line, a pattern matching to data stored in a line buffer is performed to obtain a pixel distance, and in accordance with the pixel distance, a correction amount is determined on the basis of an LUT set in a correction amount determination. Subsequently, on the basis of the determined correction amount, corrected image data are generated and output to the following step.

Abstract: Good images are formed without density irregularity even if an image supporting body varies with time. Potentials at developing locations after exposing the surface of an a-Si photoconductive body, which are recorded in a potential attenuation characteristic map, are compared with seven ranges A-G obtained by dividing the surface of the a-Si photoconductive body at every 6-volt interval to detect deviations of the potentials from a prescribed potential Vl (step S2). Individual blocks all over the surface of the a-Si photoconductive body are classified to A-G, and the exposure values are set in accordance with A-G so that Vl of the individual blocks on the surface of the a-Si photoconductive body belongs to D range (step S3). An input image undergoes image processing after its entire plane being divided into blocks corresponding to the surface of the photoconductive body (steps S4 and S5).