Patent ID: 8823760

Claim:
An optical writing control apparatus configured to cause light sources that expose photoreceptors to form electrostatic latent images on the photoreceptors, the optical writing control apparatus comprising: a light-emission control unit configured to cause a plurality of light sources provided for different colors to emit light based on pixel information of an image to be formed and output, to thereby expose the photoreceptors for the respective colors; a detection signal acquiring unit configured to acquire a detection signal from a sensor, the sensor being configured to detect images developed from the electrostatic latent images formed on the photoreceptors in a conveying path on which the images are transferred and conveyed; and a density-correction-pattern detection timing determining unit configured to determine a detection timing of a density correction pattern that is used to correct a density of each of the images developed from the electrostatic latent images, based on a detection result of a positional deviation correction pattern that is used to correct a positional deviation between the images developed from the electrostatic latent images of the respective colors in the sub-scanning direction, wherein the light-emission control unit first controls light emission of the light sources for forming the positional deviation correction pattern and thereafter controls light emission of the light sources for forming the density correction pattern, the detection signal acquiring unit acquires the detection signal of the sensor based on the determined detection timing of the density correction pattern, to thereby acquire the detection result of the density correction pattern, and the density-correction-pattern detection timing determining unit determines the detection timing of the density correction pattern by correcting a predetermined timing, which is determined in advance as the detection timing of the density correction pattern, based on a ratio between a conveying speed of a recording medium to which the images developed from the electrostatic latent images are transferred and a conveying speed of the conveying path for conveying the images developed from the electrostatic latent images.