Patent ID: 7729628

Claim:
An image heating apparatus comprising: a rotatable image heating member for heating, in a nip, an image on a recording material; a heater for heating said image heating member; a cooling device for cooling said image heating member; wherein said apparatus is operable in a first mode in which the image on the recording material is heated with a first fixing temperature to which said image heating member is set, wherein said apparatus is operable in a second mode, in which the image on the recording material is heated with a second fixing temperature to which said image heating member is set, the second fixing temperature being lower than the first fixing temperature, and a controller for controlling said apparatus such that in an operation of switching from the first mode to the second mode, a temperature of said image heating member lowers from the first fixing temperature to a predetermined temperature that is lower than the second fixing temperature, and then the temperature of said image heating member becomes the second fixing temperature.