Patent ID: 7271942

Claim:
A multi-beam optical scanning apparatus comprising: light source means including a plurality of light emission portions; a light deflector including a deflecting surface; an incident optical system in which a plurality of light beams emitted from the plurality of light emission portions is made incident on the deflecting surface of the light deflector with a width in a main scanning direction wider than that of the deflecting surface; an imaging optical system that images the plurality of light beams reflected by the light deflector on a surface to be scanned; and control means for independently controlling emission light amount of each of the plurality of light emission portions, wherein when the emission light amount of each of the plurality of light emission portions is controlled so that illuminances of the plurality of light beams become same at every image height on the surface to be scanned, the control means controls emission light amounts of the plurality of light emission portions at a maximum scanning angle so as to be different from one another.