Patent ID: 8867945

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image bearing element that bears a toner image to be transferred onto a sheet; an image forming portion that forms the toner image on the image bearing element; a cleaning element that cleans a surface of the image bearing element; a print coverage calculating portion that calculates print coverage of the toner image; a storage portion that stores a history of the print coverage calculated by the print coverage calculating portion; and a control portion that makes the image forming portion form a cleaning toner image to be supplied to the image bearing element at time of cleaning by the cleaning element, the control portion obtaining an average value of the print coverage for a predetermined period, the print coverage being stored in the storage portion, and determining an amount of toner for the cleaning toner image that is supplied to the image bearing element based on the average value, wherein the predetermined period is a period from after a previous cleaning by the cleaning element until before a current cleaning by the cleaning element.