Patent ID: 7348548

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a laser emitter for emitting a laser beam to irradiate a surface of a photosensitive member; a reflector, disposed at a position on a laser beam path defined by the laser emitter and the photosensitive member, for reflecting the laser beam emitted by the laser emitter to direct the reflected laser beam to the surface of the photosensitive member; a driver for reciprocatively moving the reflector in such a manner that the laser beam travels along a scanning line on the surface of the photosensitive member in a direction for scanning; a setter that uses the reflected laser beam moved by the driver for determining which of a scanning line in a forward direction and a scanning line in a backward direction is closer to a targeted scanning line on the surface of the photosensitive member, the setter further being operative for setting the closer scanning line as the scanning line on the surface of the photosensitive member during an image forming processing; and an emission controller for controlling the laser emitter to emit the laser beam along the scanning line in the direction set by the setter during the image forming processing.