Patent ID: 7457572

Claim:
An image forming method comprising the steps of: controlling the layer thickness of a toner on a toner bearing member by means of a toner regulating blade; and developing with the toner on the toner bearing member an electrostatic latent image formed on an electrostatic latent image bearing member; the toner regulating blade satisfying the following conditions: i) the toner regulating blade has, at a contact part to be kept in contact with the toner bearing member, a ten-point average roughness Rz in a range of 5.0 μm to 25.0 μm inclusive, as measured with a laser microscope; and ii) the toner regulating blade has, at the contact part, a ratio of the area of contact portions of the contact part to the area of a non-contact portion (=area of contact portions/area of non-contact portion) in a range of 8/92 to 70/30 inclusive, when a glass sheet is brought into contact with the contact part at a face pressure of 22.6 kPa; and the toner satisfying the following conditions: a) the toner comprises toner base particles containing at least a binder resin and a magnetic material, and fine silica particles; b) the toner has an average circularity equal to or greater than 0.930 as measured with a flow-type particle image analyzer on particles having a circle-equivalent diameter in a range of 3 μm to 400 μm inclusive; and c) the toner satisfies the following relationship where the aerated bulk density is represented by A (g/cm 3 ) and the amount of the fine silica particles, added to 100 parts by mass of the toner base particles, is represented by x (parts by mass): A> 0.085 x+ 0.59.