Patent ID: 7482104

Claim:
An image forming method, comprising: forming a latent electrostatic image on a latent electrostatic image carrier; developing the latent electrostatic image with a toner to thereby form a visible image; and fixing the image transferred to a recording medium, wherein the latent electrostatic image carrier comprises: a support, a photoconductive layer on the support, and a surface protective layer on the support, wherein the surface protective layer comprises a reactant made by cross-linking the following: an electric charge transporting material which comprises a reactive functional group, a cross-linking resin, and a fluorine surfactant, and wherein the toner comprises an inorganic fine particle which defines an effective inorganic fine particle amount in a range of 0.8% by mass to 3.0% by mass calculated from the following equation (1): Effective ⁢ ⁢ inorganic ⁢ ⁢ particle ⁢ ⁢ amount ⁢ ⁢ ( % ) = Inorganic ⁢ ⁢ particle ⁢ ⁢ amount ⁢ ⁢ ( % ) SF - 2 100 Equation ⁢ ⁢ ( 1 ) wherein SF-2 denotes a shape factor of the toner.