Patent ID: 7859720

Claim:
An image forming apparatus for forming an image, comprising: a storage unit configured to store at least a plurality of lines of image data; a data reading unit configured to read image data in a line direction from the storage unit based on a read start address; a setting unit configured to set line switching address in the line direction, for switching a line of the image data to be read by the data reading unit from a first line to a second line adjacent to the first line; a generating unit configured to generate the read start address of the second line in a case where the data reading unit switches the line of the image data from the first line to the second line, so that the read address of the first line in the line direction overlaps the read address of the second line in the line direction; a control unit configured to control the data reading unit to read image data of the second line based on the read start address generated by the generating unit in a case where the read address, for reading the image data of the first line in the direction, becomes identical to the line switching address; a halftone processing unit configured to perform halftone processing based on the image data of the first line and the image data of the second line read by the data reading unit; and an image forming unit configured to form an image based on the image data to which the halftone processing is performed by the halftone processing unit.