Patent ID: 7796905

Claim:
A multicolor image forming apparatus comprising: a photosensitive belt unit comprising: a driving roller; a driven roller; a photosensitive belt including a joint, the photosensitive belt being suspended around the driving roller and the driven roller and being rotated and driven by the driving roller; and a charger charging a surface of the photosensitive belt; an exposure device forming an electrostatic latent image, based on image information of each color, on the photosensitive belt; a plurality of developing devices storing a plurality of different color developers, the plurality of developing devices contacting and retracting from the photosensitive belt so as to develop the electrostatic latent image into a visible image using the plurality of different color developers; and an intermediate transfer unit performing a first transfer by sequentially superimposing each visible image formed on the photosensitive belt, wherein at least one developing device of the plurality of developing devices retracts from the photosensitive belt at a region which is a distance from an image region being printed by the one developing device of the plurality of developing devices, and wherein the one developing device of the plurality of developing devices retracts from the photosensitive belt at another region which is a different distance from the image region being printed by the one developing device of the plurality of developing devices.