Patent ID: 8639135

Claim:
An image forming apparatus including an image carrier, an exposure unit that forms an electrostatic latent image by exposing the image carrier, and a developing unit that contains a toner and a magnetic carrier as a developing material and that develops the electrostatic latent image formed on the image carrier into a developing material image, and executing auto tone correction processing in which a tone pattern formed on a recording material is read to adjust density tone characteristics, the apparatus comprising: a forming unit that forms a reference developing material image on the image carrier using the exposure unit and the developing unit, before execution of the auto tone correction processing; a density detecting unit that detects a density of the reference developing material image formed on the image carrier; and a control unit that, if a result of detection by the density detecting unit indicates that a toner charge amount of the developing material contained in the developing unit is within a predetermined range, allows the auto tone correction processing to be executed, and if the result of detection by the density detecting unit indicates that the toner charge amount of the developing material contained in the developing unit is outside the predetermined range, executes adjustment processing for adjusting the toner charge amount of the developing material contained in the developing unit to be within the predetermined range, before allowing the auto tone correction processing to be executed.