Patent ID: 7224378

Claim:
An optical recording apparatus for use in a color image forming apparatus, comprising: a light source which sequentially emits a plurality of light beams corresponding to basic color elements of a full color image; a scanning mechanism configured to independently reform the plurality of light beams emitted by the light source into respective cyclic scanning light beams to sequentially scan in a main scanning direction a photosensitive surface moving in a sub-scanning direction; and a phase shift controlling mechanism configured to perform an image magnification correction by a phase change for changing a phase of pixel clock signal in units of one nth of a cycle of the pixel clock signal at one or more positions on the photoconductive surface in the main scanning direction, n being an integer greater than one, and the pixel clock signals being used for a control of the light source to turn on and off each of the cyclic scanning light beams in accordance with each of the basic color elements of the full color image, wherein the scanning mechanism comprises at least one light deflecting mechanism, each comprising a plurality of light deflecting surfaces configured to move to deflect each one of the plurality of light beams emitted by the light source to reform it into corresponding one of the respective cyclic scanning light beams, and the detecting mechanism performs the beam detection per each of the plurality of light deflecting surfaces and the time measuring mechanism performs the time measurement per each of the plurality of light deflecting surfaces, and the phase shift controlling mechanism performs the image magnification correction based on the time measurement performed per each of the plurality of light deflecting surfaces by the time measuring mechanism, and wherein a time measurement on a specific light deflecting surface out of the plurality of light deflecting surfaces performed by the time measuring mechanism is regarded as a reference time measurement, and the phase shift controlling mechanism performs the image magnification correction with respect to each one of other light deflecting surfaces than the specific light deflecting surface out of the plurality of light deflecting surfaces based on a difference of a corresponding time measurement from the reference time measurement.