Patent ID: 8145108

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image carrier that is rotatably installed and carries an image on an outer circumferential surface of the image carrier; a transfer member that is rotatably installed facing the image carrier, and transfers the image carried on the outer circumferential surface of the image carrier onto a recording medium nipped between the transfer member and the image carrier; a holding member that holds, on an outer circumferential surface of the transfer member, the recording medium fed to the transfer member; and a control unit that performs control so that in first image formation operation in which images of a plurality of colors carried by the image carrier are sequentially transferred onto a single recording medium one color at a time, the holding member holds the recording medium on the transfer member, and in second image formation operation in which an image of a single color carried by the image carrier is transferred onto a single recording medium, the holding member does not hold the recording medium on the transfer member.