Patent ID: 8634109

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image carrier configured to carry an electrostatic latent image; a charging unit configured to charge a surface of the image carrier; an exposure unit configured to irradiate light onto the charged surface of the image carrier to form the electrostatic latent image; a developing unit configured to develop the electrostatic latent image formed on the surface of the image carrier using a developing material; a transfer unit configured to transfer a developer image formed on the surface of the image carrier onto a printing material; a storage unit configured to store a plurality of smoothing pattern tables, each of which includes exposure amounts for respective positions in a smoothing region and in a main scanning direction of the exposure unit; a selecting unit configured to select a smoothing pattern table from among the plurality of smoothing pattern tables stored in the storage unit in accordance with an image forming condition; an image correction unit configured to shift image data in a sub-scanning direction of the exposure unit at a plurality of offset positions in the main scanning direction to correct deformation of a scanning line of the light irradiated by the exposure unit; and a smoothing processing unit configured to add a dot whose size is smaller than one pixel in a white image region which is a region between the offset positions and is adjacent to the shifted image data in the sub-scanning direction based on the selected smoothing pattern table, wherein the smoothing processing unit is configured to reverse an order of a pattern read out from the selected smoothing pattern for smoothing processing, depending on a position of image data that indicates that a dot is to be formed and is adjacent to the white image region in the main scanning direction.