Patent ID: 8208822

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image bearing member for bearing a toner image; toner image forming means for forming a toner image on said image bearing member; detecting means including a light emitting portion for illuminating said image bearing member and for illuminating toner on said image bearing member, and a detecting portion for detecting light reflected by said image bearing member or by the toner; a controller for controlling a toner image forming condition of said toner image forming means in accordance with an output of said detecting means detecting the light reflected by said image bearing member and an output of said detecting means detecting the light reflected by the toner on said image bearing member; a cleaning member, in contact with said image bearing member, for cleaning said image bearing member; light quantity adjusting means for setting a quantity of the light of said light emitting portion such that said detecting portion detects a predetermined quantity of light; an executing portion for executing a cleaning mode operation in which said cleaning member cleans said image bearing member when the set quantity reaches a reference level; and a change portion for changing the reference level in accordance with an amount of use of said image bearing member.