Patent ID: 7242887

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a movable image bearing member; toner image forming means for repeatedly forming a plurality of toner images on said image bearing member; detection toner image forming means for forming a detection toner image in an inter-image area between the toner image and the toner image on said image bearing member; a transfer member which is in contact with an area in said image bearing member through intervention of a recording material, the toner image being formed on the area, said transfer member electrically transferring the toner image formed on said image bearing member to the recording material, said transfer member being in contact with the inter-image area with no recording material; detecting means for detecting the detection toner image on said image bearing member; controlling means for variably controlling a toner image forming condition of said toner image forming means based on the detection result; and toner removing means for forming a cleaning electric field to remove toner adhering to said transfer member, the cleaning electric field electrostatically moving the toner adhering to said transfer member to said image bearing member while said transfer member is in contact with the interimage area, wherein, a time when said toner removing means forms the cleaning electric field is T 1 in the case where the detection toner image is formed prior to the formation of the cleaning electric field in the inter-image area with which said transfer member is in contact, and a time when said toner removing means forms the cleaning electric field is T 2 . In the case where the detection toner image is not formed in the interimage area with which said transfer member is in contact, where T 1 is longer than T 2 .