Patent ID: 7395019

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: image carriers, on whose surfaces electrostatic latent images are formed; a plurality of development units which are provided in correspondence to different colors, which have developing-agent carriers that carry developing agents of corresponding colors, and which develop the electrostatic latent images on the surfaces of the image carriers through use of the developing agents by the developing-agent carriers; and recovery units which are provided for the respective development units and which recover the developing agents adhering to the respective developing-agent carriers upon contact with the developing-agent carriers after the image carriers have been subjected to development, wherein developing-agent images are sequentially formed on the image carriers by developing the electrostatic latent images by the respective development units, and the developing-agent images are transferred to a transfer-target material, thereby forming a multi-color image, and recovery capabilities of the respective recovery units are determined such that the development unit which is last in sequence of formation of a developing-agent image is higher in recovery capability than at least the development unit which is first in sequence of formation of the developing-agent image, and such that recovery capability of one development unit is higher than recovery capability of another development unit which is immediately before the one development unit in sequence of formation of the developing-agent image.