Patent ID: 7405743

Claim:
An image forming method using an image forming apparatus comprising: a latent image carrier whose surface is driven in a sub scanning direction; a deflector which scans a beam spot reciprocally in a main scanning direction substantially perpendicular to the sub scanning direction on the surface of the latent image carrier in the use of an oscillating deflect mirror so as to form a latent image; developer which develops the latent image, the method comprising of: halftoning for a tone reproduction in which a halftone-dot constituted by pixel-dot(s) is formed on a cell consisting of plural pixels according to a fattening type threshold matrix, wherein a plurality of cells are contiguously arranged in the main scanning direction so as to form a plurality of contiguous locations at each of which the cells adjoin mutually in the main scanning direction, each cell includes a four or larger-than-four even number of pixels in the sub scanning direction, two cells, which mutually adjoin at each of particular contiguous locations out of the plurality of contiguous locations, are mutually shifted by an odd number of pixel(s) in the sub scanning direction, each of the particular contiguous locations is periodically provided at every predetermined number of contiguous locations, and two cells mutually adjoining at one particular contiguous location out of two particular contiguous locations provided next to each other are arranged in a manner that one-side cell, which is at one side with respect to the main scanning direction out of the two cells, is shifted from the other-side cell out of the two cells by an odd number of pixel(s) in one direction with respect to the sub scanning direction, whereas two cells mutually adjoining at the other particular contiguous location out of the two particular contiguous locations are arranged in a manner that the one-side cell out of the two cells is shifted from the other-side cell out of the two cells by an odd number of pixel(s) in a direction opposite to the one direction with respect to the sub scanning direction.