Patent ID: 8377618

Claim:
An image forming method, comprising: charging a surface of an image bearing member; irradiating the charged surface of the image bearing member to form an electrostatic latent image thereon; developing the electrostatic latent image with a developer comprising a toner to form a toner image; transferring the toner image onto a recording medium directly or via a transfer member to form an unfixed toner image; cleaning residual toner particles remaining on the image bearing member; and fixing the unfixed toner image on the recording medium, wherein the toner comprises: a mother toner comprising a crystalline polyester resin, an amorphous resin, and a wax; and an external additive, wherein the toner satisfies the following equation (1): 0.36≦(2.77 ×C/R +1.97 ×W/R )/ X≦ 1.85 (1) wherein each of C, W, and R represents a height of an absorbance peak specific to the crystalline polyester resin, the wax, and the amorphous resin, respectively, measured by a FT-IR ATR method; and X represents an amount (parts by weight) of the external additive.