Patent ID: 7462444

Claim:
An image forming method comprising: imagewise exposing and thermal developing a sheet of photothermographic material using an image recording apparatus, wherein the image recording apparatus has at least the following portions (A) to (D): (A) a laser irradiation portion that scans the photothermographic material with a laser beam based on image data to expose the photothermographic material; (B) a transport portion that transports the photothermographic material in the laser irradiation portion; (C) a thermal developing portion, disposed on the side downstream from the transport portion, and in which a part of one sheet of the photothermographic material is imagewise exposed by the laser irradiation portion and simultaneously a part of the sheet having been already imagewise exposed is developed by heating; and (D) a guide portion, provided between the transport portion and the thermal developing portion, and allowing a flexion of the photothermographic material generated by a difference between a transport speed in the transport portion and a transport speed in the thermal developing portion: wherein the photothermographic material comprises at least a photosensitive silver halide, a non-photosensitive organic silver salt, a reducing agent represented by following formula (R) and a binder on at least one surface of a support; wherein R 11 and R 11′ each independently represents an alkyl group having 1 to 20 carbon atoms, R 12 and R 12′ each independently represents a hydrogen atom or a group capable of substituting for a hydrogen atom on a benzene ring, L represents a —S— group or a —CHR 13 — group, R 13 represents a hydrogen atom or an alkyl group having 1 to 20 carbon atoms, and X and X 1 each independently represents a hydrogen atom or a group capable of substituting for a hydrogen atom on a benzene ring; and wherein the photosensitive silver halide contains at least two preformed photosensitive silver halides having respective sensitivities different from each other for a light with the same exposure wavelength and a silver iodide content of the photosensitive silver halide is 40% by mole or more.