Patent ID: 8059981

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image carrier; an exposure mechanism to expose the image carrier; a latent-image forming mechanism to form a latent image by exposing the image carrier; at least one image forming mechanism including a development mechanism to develop the latent image with toner; an intermediate transfer member disposed to contact the image carrier; a primary transfer mechanism to transfer a toner image on the image carrier and superimpose one toner image on another on the intermediate transfer member; a secondary transfer mechanism to transfer the toner image superimposed on the intermediate transfer member onto a transfer material; an asperity detector to detect an asperity profile of a surface of the transfer material to identify concavities in the surface of the transfer material; and a toner adhesion control mechanism to increase a ratio of an amount of toner per unit area transferred to the intermediate transfer member according to the concavities in the surface of the transfer material as identified by the asperity detector after a predetermined time elapses in accordance with an amount of time that the image carrier and the development mechanism have been in operation.