Patent ID: 8159727

Claim:
An image reading apparatus, comprising: a contact glass on which a document is placed; an imaging device configured to image a document image based on light reflected from the document through the contact glass; plural line image sensors arranged along a main scanning direction at positions where the document image is imaged and configured so that end portions of the line image sensors adjacent to each other similarly read a same image data imaged at an overlapping area, wherein the image data at the overlapping area similarly read by the end portions of the plural line image sensors are joined to form continuous image data; a transmitted light quantity reduction unit disposed in the overlapping area on the contact glass and configured to reduce transmitted light quantity of a light transmitted through the contact glass in the overlapping area by a fraction of the light transmitted to a remainder of the contact glass; and a signal correction device configured to correct the signal intensity of the image data similarly read by the line image sensors adjacent to each other, by increasing a signal intensity level of light reduced bands representing the overlapping area to a signal intensity level equal to bands representing the light transmitting through the remainder of the contact glass.