Patent ID: 8123321

Claim:
An image forming method for forming an image in such a manner that plural kinds of recording materials, which belong to a same color category and which are different in density, are adhered to a recording medium by a plurality of recording elements, respectively, so as to form dots representing the image to be printed on the recording medium, the image forming method comprising: detecting a defect position at which no recording material is outputted from one of the plurality of recording elements; identifying said one of the plurality of recording elements, which is at the detected defect position as a defect recording element, and identifying a kind of the recording material that cannot be outputted by the defect recording element as a defect recording material; determining mixture ratios of the plural kinds of recording materials belonging to the same color category and different in density for every position of the plurality of recording elements, in such a manner that a mixture ratio at each position of recording elements which are in an area that includes the defect position and a peripheral area of the defect position, is lower than a mixture ratio of the plural kinds of recording materials at each position of other recording elements which are capable of outputting the defect recording material and are in an area other than said area that includes the defect position and the peripheral area of the defect position; converting image data of the image to be printed to dot ratios, which respectively correspond to the plural kinds of recording materials, based on the determined mixture ratios; and executing controlling operations, so as to implement an image forming operation by employing the dot ratios.