Patent ID: 8811835

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: a developing unit which develops, with a developer, an electrostatic latent image formed on an image bearing member based on image data; a replenishing unit which replenishes the developing unit with the developer; a detecting unit which detects presence/absence of the developer in the replenishing unit; a counting unit which counts a number of dots according to the image data; a calculating unit which calculates an integrated value of the number of dots; and a control unit which performs a determination process of determining the presence/absence of the developer based on a detection result of the detecting unit, and which stops an image forming operation in a case where the control unit determines that the developer is present and that the integrated value exceeds a predetermined value, wherein the detecting unit has a light-emitting unit which emits light, a light-receiving unit which receives the emitted light, and a light amount increasing unit which performs a light amount increasing process of increasing a light emission amount of the light-emitting unit, and wherein, in the case where the control unit determines that the developer is present and that the integrated value exceeds the predetermined value, the control unit causes the light amount increasing unit to perform the light amount increasing process at least once and performs the determination process at least once, and then in a case where the control unit determines again that the developer is present, the control unit stops the image forming operation.