Patent ID: 8294744

Claim:
An optical writing device that exposes a photosensitive element of an image forming apparatus based on pixel data forming image information, the optical writing device comprising: a light source including a plurality of light-emitting element arrays arranged in a main scanning direction, each light-emitting element array including a plurality of light-emitting elements arranged in the main scanning direction; a correction-value holding unit configured to hold, correspondingly with a light-emitting element, a correction value for changing timing to read out the pixel data stored in an image storage unit; and a light-source drive unit configured to drive the light source by reading out the pixel data stored in the image storage unit, according to the correction value, wherein the correction-value holding unit includes a first holding area for holding a first correction value corresponding to a first light-emitting element located at an end of a light-emitting element array and a second holding area for holding a second correction value corresponding to a second light-emitting element other than the first light-emitting element, the first holding area being larger than the second holding area.