To prevent the detection accuracy from deteriorating due to stray light, an optical apparatus includes the following configuration. The optical apparatus includes a light-emitting member, a light-receiving member, and a substrate on which the light-emitting member and the light-receiving member are mounted. The substrate includes a plate-like substrate layer and a plate-like conductive layer. The optical apparatus further includes a light-shielding member disposed between the light-receiving member and the light-emitting member and inserted in a through-hole of the substrate provided between the light-receiving member and the light-emitting member. The light-receiving member receives reflected light from a portion to be irradiated with the light emitted from the light-emitting member. The conductive layer is excellent in light-shielding property compared to the substrate layer. The conductive layer is exposed to an inner cylindrical surface of the through-hole.

An image forming apparatus uses a first developer conveyance amount and a first correction amount calculated respectively in a first state, a second developer conveyance amount and a second correction amount calculated respectively in a second state in which the developer conveyance amount is smaller than the developer conveyance amount of the first state, and a third developer conveyance amount detected in a third state in which the developer conveyance amount is smaller than the developer conveyance amount of the first state and is larger than the developer conveyance amount of the second state to calculate a third correction amount for correcting density unevenness of the toner image in the third state, and perform control to correct the density unevenness of the toner image based on the calculated third correction amount.

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming section, a transferred member, a transferring member, and a separator. The image forming section forms a developer image by developing a developer. The transferred member is conveyed in a first direction and the developer image is to be transferred on the transferred member. The transferring member faces the transferred member, and makes a transition between a biasing state in which the transferred member is biased by the transferring member and a separated state in which the transferring member is separated away from the transferred member. The separator separates, in the separated state, a medium away from the transferred member, in which the medium is held between the transferred member and the transferring member in the biasing state.

An image forming apparatus includes: a roller arranged in a position between a drive roller and an idle roller and downstream from the drive roller in a rotation direction of an intermediate transfer belt while pressing an outer surface of the belt; and a density measuring portion arranged between the drive roller and the roller applying pressure. The density measuring portion optically detects the density of a test patch formed on the outer surface and in a given position of a width direction of the belt. The density measuring portion includes: an optical sensor provided above the outer surface of the belt; and a support member abutting on an inner surface of the belt in a position in which the support member faces the optical sensor across the belt in the rotation direction.

An image forming apparatus includes a control unit configured to detect a misregistration amount and densities of the toner images by detecting first and second detection patterns. The first detection pattern includes black and color portions, and the control unit is further configured to set a light-emitting amount of a detection unit, a threshold, or a sensitivity of a detection unit so that a received light amount of diffuse reflection light from the black portion is less than the threshold and a received light amount of diffuse reflection light from the color portion exceeds the threshold, and to set the light-emitting amount or the sensitivity so that the received light amount of the diffuse reflection light from the color portion is less than an upper limit of the detection unit.

Disclosed herein are an image forming apparatus and method that determines whether a photo sensor used for color registration is contaminated and a contamination level thereof so as to automatically clean the photo sensor. The image forming apparatus includes an intermediate transfer medium onto which images having different colors are to be overlapped and transferred, a photo sensor which emits light to receive light reflected by the intermediate transfer medium, a cleaning unit which cleans the photo sensor, and a control unit which controls the cleaning unit to clean the photo sensor based on an amount of light received by the photo sensor meeting a contamination indicating threshold.

The present invention includes an optical system disposed on an optical path of light that is emitted by a light emitting section, travels to a detection target object, is reflected by the detection target object, and reaches a light receiving section. The optical system, in a sub scanning direction, that is, the direction in which a detection target object is moving, collects light so that the light receiving section has, for light from the light emitting section, a regularly reflected light receiving area and a diffuse-reflected light receiving area that differ from each other in position within a predetermined range. The optical system, in a perpendicular direction that is perpendicular to the movement direction, refracts light so that a light receiving area, which covers the regularly reflected light receiving area and the diffuse-reflected light receiving area, is wider in the perpendicular direction than in the sub scanning direction.

An image forming apparatus includes: an output unit configured to receive light reflected from a measurement image on an image carrier and output a signal corresponding to a light receiving result; a detection unit configured to detect a temperature of the output unit; a conversion unit configured to convert an output value output from the output unit, based on a conversion condition; a controller configured to control an image forming condition for adjusting a density of an image to be formed based on a converted output value by the conversion unit; and a generation unit configured to, at a predetermined timing, acquire an output value output from the output unit without emitting light, control the detection unit to detect the temperature, and generate the conversion condition based on the acquired output value and the detected temperature.

An image formation apparatus for forming an image and test patterns. The image formation apparatus includes a storage unit that stores dither matrix data used to form the image and the test patterns; and an image formation unit that forms the test patterns based on the dither matrix data. A number of tones of the test patterns to be formed by the image formation unit is changed and the number of tones is determined based on a size of the dither matrix data and a number of bits per pixel within the dither matrix data.

An image forming apparatus includes: an image forming unit for forming successive images and a pattern image with developer on a transfer member, the successive images including a first image and at least one second image subsequent to the first image; a conveying unit for conveying a medium; a transfer unit for transferring the successive images on the transfer member onto the medium; a detector for detecting the pattern image on the transfer member; a controller for causing the image forming unit to form the pattern image between the first image and the at least one second image and form the at least one second image on the transfer member based on the detection of the pattern image by the detector; and a separation unit for separating the transfer member and the medium from each other to prevent the pattern image from being transferred onto the medium.