Patent ID: 7745080

Claim:
A color image forming method comprising, for each of a plurality of color toners contained in each of a plurality of developers, the plurality of developers consists of a black toner, a magenta toner, a cyan toner and a yellow toner, forming one of each of a plurality of electrostatic latent images on a surface of a different one of a plurality of electrostatic latent image holding members, developing each of the plurality of the electrostatic latent images with a different one of the plurality of developers to form each of a plurality of toner images with each color toner of the plurality of the color toners, transferring each of the plurality of the toner images formed on a different one of each of the plurality of the electrostatic latent image holding members onto a surface of an intermediate transfer belt such that the plurality of color toners are superimposed onto the intermediate transfer belt in order of black, yellow, magenta and cyan, subsequently transferring, onto a surface of a recording medium, the superimposed toner image having a cyan toner image as a topmost toner image and a black toner image as a bottommost toner image on the intermediate transfer belt, and fixing the transferred superimposed toner image having the black toner image as a topmost toner image and the cyan toner image as the bottommost toner image on the surface of the recording medium, wherein the yellow, magenta, and cyan toners containing an infrared absorber, wherein the cyan toner has a maximum infrared absorbance lower than a maximum infrared absorbance of the magenta toner and a maximum infrared absorbance of the yellow toner, the maximum infrared absorbance is determined in a wavelength range of from 800 to 1100 nm, wherein the infrared absorber is incorporated into the cyan, magenta, and yellow toners at the following content ratios as represented by the following formulae (1) and (2): 0.3< Kc/Km< 0.5 (1) 0.3 <Kc/Ky< 0.5 (2) wherein, Kc: Content of an infrared absorber in the cyan toner, in parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of the cyan toner, Km: Content of an infrared absorber in the magenta toner, in parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of the magenta toner, and Ky: Content of an infrared absorber in the yellow toner, in parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of the yellow toner.