Patent ID: 8638481

Claim:
An optical writing control apparatus that controls a light source emitting a light beam onto a photosensitive member to cause the light source to draw an electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive member in an image forming apparatus that develops the electrostatic latent image drawn on the photosensitive member and forms an image, the optical writing control apparatus comprising: a parameter correction part that controls the light source to cause the light source to emit the light beam and draw a correction pattern used for a correction operation of correcting a parameter value of an image forming mechanism of the image forming apparatus, detects the correction pattern transferred onto a surface of a conveyance member based on an output signal of a sensor that obtains imaging information of the surface of the conveyance member onto which an image developed on the photosensitive member is transferred, and corrects the parameter value based on the detected correction pattern; a progress information storage part that stores chromatic color progress information indicating a progress having occurred from when the correction operation for a chromatic color mechanism of the image forming mechanism corresponding to a chromatic color image was carried out and achromatic color progress information indicating a progress having occurred from when the correction operation for an achromatic color mechanism of the image forming mechanism corresponding to an achromatic color image was carried out; and a threshold storage part that stores a necessary threshold used to determine that the correction operation is necessary and an unnecessary threshold used to determine that the correction operation is unnecessary, with respect to the chromatic color progress information and the achromatic color progress information, wherein the parameter correction part determines whether the correction operation is necessary separately for the respective ones of the chromatic color mechanism and the achromatic color mechanism by comparing the respective ones of the chromatic color progress information and the achromatic color progress information with the necessary threshold, and it is determined that the correction operation is necessary for both of the chromatic color mechanism and the achromatic color mechanism in a case where any one of the chromatic color progress information and the achromatic color progress information has become equal to or more than the necessary threshold and the other has a value between the unnecessary threshold and the necessary threshold.