Patent ID: 7852500

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: an image forming device configured to form an image; a detector configured to obtain current state information of the image forming device, the current state information indicating physical characteristics or image quality of the image; a storage device configured to store normal state information corresponding to the current state information; an image processor configured to apply one of 1) normal state image processing when no calibration operation is needed and 2) abnormal state image processing to be performed at least until the calibration operation is performed; and a controller configured to compare the current state information with the normal state information to generate a comparison result indicating a difference between the current state information and the normal state information, to detect a current state of the image forming apparatus based on the comparison result, and to select either the normal state image processing or the abnormal state image processing based on the detected current state, wherein when the normal state image processing is selected, the controller is further configured to select one of a plurality of normal state image operations based on the current state information to cause the image processor to apply the selected one of the normal state image operations, and when the abnormal state image processing is selected, the controller is further configured to cause the image processor to apply the abnormal state image processing, and wherein when the comparison result indicates that the overall intensity of one color of a plurality of colors obtained from the current state information is different from the overall intensity of the one color of the plurality of colors obtained from the normal state information, the image processor determines that the one color is in an abnormal state and is configured to: extract a maximum output intensity for the one color in the abnormal state from the current state information; extract intensity values for colors other than the one color that respectively correspond to the maximum output intensity from the normal state information; scale intensity values of colors other than the one color that are obtained from the current state information such that the extracted intensity values for colors other than the one color are respectively set as the maximum intensity values of the scaled intensity values to generate adjusted intensity values; and apply image processing using the adjusted intensity values such that a color balance of the plurality of colors of the image to be formed by the image forming device is maintained even when the detected current state of the image forming apparatus is the abnormal state.