Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes: a first image carrier; a first image forming unit that forms an image; an intermediate transfer belt; a primary transfer unit that primarily transfers the image onto the intermediate transfer belt; a secondary transfer unit that secondarily transfers the image transferred further onto a recording medium; a second image carrier that transfers the image onto the recording medium; a second image forming unit that forms an image on the second image carrier; a direct transfer unit that directly transfers the image onto the recording medium; a recording medium carriage belt, and a driving roller that drives the recording medium carriage belt; a speed fluctuation detecting unit; and a drive control unit that controls driving of the driving roller so as to reduce the cyclic speed fluctuation of the carriage belt based on a detection result of the speed fluctuation detecting unit.

Abstract: To provide an image forming method for obtaining excellent image quality under high humidity. The image forming method including charging a surface of a latent electrostatic image bearing member, exposing the charged surface of the latent electrostatic image bearing member so as to form a latent electrostatic image, developing the latent electrostatic image using a developer so as to form a toner image, and transferring the toner image from the latent electrostatic image bearing member to a transfer medium, wherein in the developing step, a toner is used that has an interparticle adhesion force of 500 nN to 1,200 nN when pressed at 500 nN and a volume average particle diameter of 4 ?m to 8 ?m, and in the transferring step, the transfer pressure applied to the transfer medium is 20 N/m to 60 N/m, and wherein a tandem image forming apparatus is used in the image forming method.

Abstract: An image forming method is disclosed having a charging step, an exposure step, a developing step and a transfer step. This method uses a toner which includes toner particles containing a binder resin and a colorant, and inorganic fine powder, and uses a photosensitive member which has on its surface depressed portions which are independent of one another. The depressed portions have openings having an average minor-axis diameter Lpc satisfying the relationship of Dg<Lpc<Dt (Dt represents the weight-average particle diameter of the toner, and Dg represents the maximum number-average particle diameter among number-average particle diameter(s) of one or two or more types of inorganic fine powder constituting the inorganic fine powder, and the toner has an average circularity of from 0.925 to 0.995.

Abstract: An embodiment may be an image forming method, which comprises forming a latent image on an image carrier; developing the latent image with a toner to form a toner image on the image carrier; transferring the toner image; and applying ultrasonic vibration at one of the developing step and the transferring step. The toner comprises a resin particle and a release agent particle having a melting point in a range of 40 to 75° C. and the toner has Dp50 of 3.0 to 5.0 ?m.