Patent ID: 8131193

Claim:
An image forming apparatus for adjusting a position at which a toner image is formed on a printing material, based upon a light reflected by a pattern image that has been formed on an image carrier, said apparatus comprising: a light-emitting unit which emits light to the image carrier; a detecting unit which detects an amount of substrate-light reflected from a substrate of the image carrier and an amount of image-light reflected from the pattern image formed on the image carrier; an identifying unit which identifies an amount of reflection light detected by the detecting unit as the amount of the image-light when a detection result of the detecting unit is less than or equal to a threshold value; and a light-power control unit which controls an amount of a light emitted from the light-emitting unit such that the amount of the image-light detected by the detecting unit does not exceed the threshold value when the amount of the substrate-light detected by the detecting unit is lower than a predetermined value.