Patent ID: 8406676

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: an image carrier driven to rotate and carry a latent image on a surface thereof; a charging device to uniformly charge the surface of the image carrier; an exposure device to perform, on the basis of acquired image data, an exposure operation on the charged surface of the image carrier to write the latent image thereon; a development device to supply toner to the latent image to develop the latent image into a visible image; a transfer device to transfer the visible image to one of an intermediate transfer member and a recording medium in a transfer operation; a lubricant application device to apply lubricant to the surface of the image carrier; a cleaning device to clean the surface of the image carrier subjected to the transfer operation, wherein the lubricant application device and the cleaning device are in constant contact with the image carrier; a fixing device to fix, on the recording medium, the image transferred thereto; and a control device to control, on the basis of recent print information, operation of the lubricant application device to apply lubricant in a lubricant application mode in which the lubricant application device applies the lubricant to the surface of the image carrier without writing an image on the image carrier, wherein the control device comprises at least one of an image area ratio calculation device to calculate an image area ratio representing a ratio of the image area to a movement area of the image carrier, and an average image area ratio calculation device to calculate an average image area ratio representing an average value of the image area ratios of recently printed images, wherein the control device uses one of the image area ratio, the average image area ratio, and a calculation value calculated on the basis of the average image area ratio as the print information for controlling the operation of the lubricant application device in the lubricant application mode, and wherein the control device controls the operation of the lubricant application device to increase the amount of the lubricant applied in the lubricant application mode before writing the latent image on the image carrier when the one of the image area ratio, the average image area ratio, and a calculation value calculated on the basis of the average image area ratio is greater than a predetermined value.