An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier and a charge removing portion. An electrostatic latent image is formed on the image carrier. The charge removing portion includes: a light source configured to emit light to be used for removing charge from the image carrier; a light concentrating portion configured to concentrate the light emitted from the light source on a surface of the image carrier; and a light source supporting portion formed integrally with the light concentrating portion and supporting the light source at a supporting position in which the light source and the light concentrating portion have a predetermined positional relationship.

An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier and a charge removing portion. An electrostatic latent image is formed on the image carrier. The charge removing portion includes: a light source configured to emit light to be used for removing charge from the image carrier; a light concentrating portion configured to concentrate the light emitted from the light source on a surface of the image carrier; and a light source supporting portion formed integrally with the light concentrating portion and supporting the light source at a supporting position in which the light source and the light concentrating portion have a predetermined positional relationship.

In an image forming apparatus that employs a laser scanning optical system that does not use an fθ lens, in the case where magnification correction by insertion/removal of an auxiliary pixel is performed based on the premise of digital PWM, an insertion/removal position of an auxiliary pixel is controlled in accordance with a purpose of each piece of image processing.

An image processing apparatus includes: a first inverter to output binary image data having first resolution, as image data having pixel values that are inverted or image data having unprocessed pixel values, in accordance with an inversion signal; a thinning processor to convert the image data output from the first inverter from the first resolution to second resolution and perform a thinning process of thinning pixels of edge portions of the image data in units of the second resolution; and a second inverter to output the image data having the second resolution for which the thinning process is performed, as image data having pixel values that are inverted or image data having unprocessed pixel values, in accordance with the inversion signal.

An image processing apparatus includes: a first inverter to output binary image data having first resolution, as image data having pixel values that are inverted or image data having unprocessed pixel values, in accordance with an inversion signal; a thinning processor to convert the image data output from the first inverter from the first resolution to second resolution and perform a thinning process of thinning pixels of edge portions of the image data in units of the second resolution; and a second inverter to output the image data having the second resolution for which the thinning process is performed, as image data having pixel values that are inverted or image data having unprocessed pixel values, in accordance with the inversion signal.

An optical writing device and an image forming apparatus incorporating the optical writing device. The optical writing device includes two or more light sources, a pixel clock generator to measure a scanning speed of one of the two or more light sources and generate a pixel clock of a cycle corrected according to the measured scanning speed, a pulse data generation and output unit to generate pulse width data and shift data for the pixel clock generated by the pixel clock generator to output the generated pulse width data and the generated shift data for each one of the two or more light sources, and a plurality of image pulse generation and output units to generate an image pulse. In the optical writing device, the plurality of image pulse generation and output units are supplied with the pixel clock in common.

An image forming apparatus includes plural components that are used to perform an image forming operation, and a drive controller that controls a potential noise source component or a component group containing plural potential noise source components among the plural components to be sequentially driven in an operation state for specifying a noise occurrence place such that a component or a component group having a higher possibility to be a noise source is driven with higher priority or a component or a component group having a lower possibility to be the noise source with lower priority.

An image forming apparatus includes plural components that are used to perform an image forming operation, and a drive controller that controls a potential noise source component or a component group containing plural potential noise source components among the plural components to be sequentially driven in an operation state for specifying a noise occurrence place such that a component or a component group having a higher possibility to be a noise source is driven with higher priority or a component or a component group having a lower possibility to be the noise source with lower priority.

An optical scanning device is provided with a housing, a plurality of laser light sources, and a substrate. The laser light sources are attached to a side wall of the housing in a state wherein three terminals are protruding outward. The substrate is disposed to face an outer surface of the side wall of the housing. The laser light sources include: a first laser light source having a predetermined angle with respect to the substrate; and a second laser light source having a symmetrical angle to the angle of the first laser light source with respect to the substrate. In the first laser light source, only one of the three terminals is bent in the direction to be separated from other two terminals, and the second laser light source is disposed by inverting 180° a laser light source having a configuration same as that of the first laser light source.

An optical scanning device is provided with a housing, a plurality of laser light sources, and a substrate. The laser light sources are attached to a side wall of the housing in a state wherein three terminals are protruding outward. The substrate is disposed to face an outer surface of the side wall of the housing. The laser light sources include: a first laser light source having a predetermined angle with respect to the substrate; and a second laser light source having a symmetrical angle to the angle of the first laser light source with respect to the substrate. In the first laser light source, only one of the three terminals is bent in the direction to be separated from other two terminals, and the second laser light source is disposed by inverting 180° a laser light source having a configuration same as that of the first laser light source.