Patent ID: 8611767

Claim:
An image forming apparatus that comprises: a photoreceptor member to form a toner image thereon; a charging section to electrically charge the photoreceptor member; an exposing section to expose the photoreceptor member charged by the charging section, so as to form a latent image thereon; a developing section to develop the latent image with toner so as to form the toner image on the photoreceptor member; a photoreceptor-member transferring section to transfer the toner image formed on the photoreceptor member onto a transfer medium; a cleaning section to remove residual toner remaining on the photoreceptor member, a light source that is disposed at a position located between the cleaning section and the charging section, to emit an inspection light, which is to be irradiated onto the photoreceptor member over a main-scanning direction thereof; a tight-contact type image sensor that has a line image sensor to receive the inspection light reflected from a surface of the photoreceptor member; and a control section to determine a status of the surface of the photoreceptor member, based on a result of analyzing the inspection light receive by the line image sensor; wherein the control section operates in either a normal operating mode or an, adjustment operating mode; wherein, in the normal operating mode, the control section determine the status of the surface of the photoreceptor member in such a state that the cleaning section press-contacts onto the surface of the photoreceptor member; and wherein, in the adjustment operating mode, the control section deactivates a transferring operation to be performed by the photoreceptor-member transferring section, and makes the cleaning section separate from the surface of the photoreceptor member, and then, controls the light source to irradiate the inspection light onto the surface of the photereceptor member, bearing the toner image thereon, and also controls the line image sensor to receive the inspection light reflected from the surface of the photoreceptor member, so as to detect density unevenness of the toner image based on the result of analyzing the inspection light received by the line image sensor.